


Watchful

by cafephan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, Ghost!Dan, halloween fic, paranormal investigator phil, this is where i can let my nerdiness over watching too many ghost hunting shows into
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-08-24 00:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8348899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafephan/pseuds/cafephan
Summary: Phil is part of one of the world’s most famous paranormal investigator groups, along with his friends Joe, Zoe and Louise. The never before investigated Harrowick Penitentiary catches the group’s attention, and they settle in the town for a week long investigation. Most importantly, they hope to make contact with one spirit in particular, Dan Howell, who was falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, and was murdered in the building. When Dan becomes attached to Phil, things become a lot more complicated.





	1. One.

“Harrowick State Penitentiary is home to some of England’s most severe hauntings. No paranormal investigation programme has ever had permission to spend a night there… until today” Joe spoke confidently to the camera, rising intonation in his voice when needed to make everything seem just a little more creepy.

Louise shuddered as she held the camera, and Phil himself shuddered as he looked up at the former prison, his paranoia causing him to see a shadow form on one of the windows in the currently fully lit building.

Zoe then jumped in shot beside Joe, and began adding more information to the group’s latest investigation.

“And what’s better? We’ve been given permission to investigate here for one full week.” She smiled confidently into the camera and turned on her heels to look up at the building before them. Louise ran around to catch her face on camera again whilst Phil got a panning shot starting from Zoe’s slender form up to the top of the prison. “Over a hundred deaths stretching over one hundred years, including thirty four suicides and twelve murders by other inmates. The others? Left to die of old age in their cells, and who knows how else.”

Phil was mesmerised at the siblings’ natural camera presence, they didn’t need to read from an autocue, ever. They were so passionate about their job (as were Phil and Louise, but they were more the crew, Zoe and Joe were who the viewers remembered thus were paid significantly more) and didn’t ever need re-briefing of the facts before filming. Phil forced himself to look back to Zoe and Joe and focus his filming purely back on them, and pull his gaze away from the window that he had been sub-consciously keeping an eye on.

He cast a quick glance back, and the shadow was gone. He wasn’t feeling this location, at all. Himself, Zoe, Joe and Louise were renowned for visiting the world’s most haunted locations, and were famous for gathering the most compelling paranormal evidence. Offers and begs were constantly flooding in for the group to investigate various locations and buildings, and it took days, sometimes weeks, of research before they could come to a majority vote about where to visit first.

“The youngest of these deaths was twenty-three year old Daniel Howell, which is what clinched this location for us more than any other. What’s more? He was falsely accused of the crime he was locked up for. That poor spirit, in there-“ Joe paused to turn and face the looming building before turning back to the camera, “Is only a few months older than myself, two years younger than Zoe, and the exact same age as Phil.” he concluded, and Louise turned the camera to face Phil, whilst he was unaware.

“Evidently he’s ecstatic” Zoe joked as the camera was turned back on the Sugg siblings.

“Anyway, as usual we have Caspar and Alfie, our tech experts, back in our base over at the back of the building, who will be monitoring and hearing our every movement and breath” Joe explained.

“They’ve ensured our camera batteries are all fully charged, and all of our equipment is at full capacity.  In just a few minutes, we’ll be locked inside Harrowick State Penitentiary, for the whole night. Just the four of us and the two back at base, nothing you see on this show is artificial” Zoe prompted Louise to spin the camera around, proving that it was just the four of them on the Penitentiary lot.

Louise then turned the camera off and replaced the battery, panting loudly as she did so.

“Are you alright?” Phil asked, concerned for his colleague – and best friend’s – safety. In the job they were in, there was no telling how you could react. All four of them had suffered emotional, verbal and even physical abuse whilst in the profession.

“I’m really not feeling this place, I swear I saw something move on the sixth floor whilst Zoe and Joe were talking” she replied breathlessly, leaning on the wall and attempting to regain breath.

“It’s funny, I saw something when I turned to face it just now, like something moving quickly past the window?” Joe added as he placed a comforting hand on Louise’s back, Zoe on her other side coaching her on taking deep breaths.

“I’m getting a weird vibe from it” Joe rubbed his hands together and put on a joking, devilish grin as he picked up a spirit box and placed it in his pocket along with an EVP recorder.

Phil picked up his camera and also placed a spirit box and EVP recorder in his pocket, as they all do during every investigation.

The two waited on the doorstep for Zoe and Louise, who now looked more together and ready to take on whatever may be waiting for them.

Phil turned on his camera and gave Joe a thumbs up.

“Okay everybody, this is it. We’re about to enter Harrowick State Penitentiary, and we’re not coming out until the sun is high in the sky.” He told the camera, before Phil turned it off again to preserve battery life.

Louise handed Joe the keys and he unlocked the front door, which hesitantly creaked open, heavily scraping on the stone floor.

Everyone always assumes that the ghost investigation programmes such as the one Phil was a proud part of were put on for entertainment, that everything is done in editing and that the investigators don’t even spend the night there. And yeah, some don’t, some spend millions on editing. But _Ghost and Seek_ did things by the book, and do everything they claim to do. Everything they catch on audio, video, or photographs is organic and real, and that’s how they built their reputation, and the reason why their show had no competition when it came to ratings.

Joe locked the door behind them, and almost immediately, a cold wind blew around the group, making all four of them shudder.

“Are you serious? Already?” Zoe whispered excitedly as she pulled out an EVP recorder, Louise focusing the camera on her.

“Hello? We mean no harm to you, we’re friendly” she called out, but the recorder picked nothing up when they replayed the audio a few seconds later.

“Switch to heat sensory” she whispered to Louise, who nodded, and did just that.

Phil peered over to Louise’s camera, which was displaying nothing out of the ordinary.

Louise shrugged, and Zoe pouted slightly, before instantaneously perking back up again.

“Well I didn’t think we’d pick anything up at the entrance” Joe stated jokingly before walking off, causing the rest of the group to rush after him.  The building was ten storeys tall, and the last thing they wanted was to split up, at least this early on.

“We mean you no harm” Joe announced loudly, his voice echoing and booming from every stone wall and crevice.

“I’m Joe, and with me is Zoe, Louise and Phil” he continued, voice still as loud and steady as before.

Phil still felt incredibly cold, enough to make him shudder violently thus causing the camera to shake as a consequence, but he managed to keep a relatively stable stance given the situation.

“Wait- Phil are you okay?” Zoe interrupted her brother and Louise turned her camera towards Phil, who kept his focused on Joe.

“You’re freezing” Louise commented, a hint of worry in her voice as she looked through the heat-sensory filtered camera.

“I’m f-fine” Phil replied, trying desperately to hide that the chill he was enduring was causing his teeth to chatter.

“Use the spirit box, it’s not normal to be this cold this early on, especially when it’s a really warm night outside and we’ve been here for literally two minutes” Joe prompted, smiling supportively as he took Phil’s camera from him and Phil shakily retrieved his spirit box.

Joe powered down Phil’s camera to conserve battery as Louise was gathering the footage, and Phil carefully turned on the spirit box.

“Hello, spirits of Harrowick. As my friends have said, we mean no harm” he began, and Zoe gave him a thumbs up, before mouthing ‘keep going’ as nothing was picked up on the device thus far.

“I’d really appreciate it if you could let me know who’s here with me. My name’s Phil, what’s yours?” he asked, shocked his voice hadn’t broken halfway through the question, but he was still going strong.

The four stayed silent for a few seconds as Phil gently moved the box around in an attempt to pick up a voice.

“Wait, did you hear that?” Louise whispered as Phil had the device pointed behind him.

“I heard something” Phil confirmed, swallowing back a bubble of fear.

“Play it back” Joe commanded (out of excitement, not bossiness) and the four gathered around Louise’s camera as she carefully replayed the past minute or so, the sound quality high and crisp.

‘My name’s Phil, what’s yours?’ he heard himself ask, and tried to ignore how horrible he sounded on playback. There was silence as he began to move the device around, nothing but white noise, before an unmistakable sound pronounced itself, just as Phil moved the device behind him, they were seeing it in real time as they were hearing it.

_'Dan.'_


	2. Two.

“Holy shit” Joe breathed, and Louise gasped.

Phil was frozen in place, it was rare that he was the one to get any response when the four of them together. Thankfully Zoe was quick to react to the situation.

“Daniel Howell?” she asked, back on a quick burst EVP session, the device hanging between her immaculately painted fingertips.

No response.

“How did you die?” she asked as a follow-up, asking questions in rapidfire as to constitute a quick burst session, leaving a few seconds for a spirit to answer each one.

A distant bang.

“Are you mad that we’re here?”

No response.

“Should we be afraid?” Louise called out.

A distant sound, louder than the last, some footsteps overhead.

“Another sound and footsteps above us,” Zoe commented for the purpose of the future playback, then ended the session after a few more seconds.

Apart from the sounds they heard whilst the session was going on, none of them heard anything out of the ordinary. It seemed the spirit of ‘Dan’, if it was even Daniel Howell, had either gone shy or needed to conserve energy. The other spirits seemed to not want to make contact quite yet.

“Um, guys?” Joe’s walkie-talkie sprung into life, and Caspar’s broad accent came through the tinny speaker.

“Yeah?” the presenter asked, stepping closer to the camera so it could pick up the audio better.

“You need to go to the warden’s office, like right now, there’s been some crazy stuff happening since you started that quick burst.” Caspar suggested, and immediately Joe set off for the warden’s office, a thin beam of light from his flashlight guiding the way.

The warden’s office was where they were keeping all of their spare equipment, as they had gathered from the interviews they’d done so far (they would be doing the rest the following afternoon, they always showed a handful in the introduction to each episode) that it was the room with the least reported activity. It seemed like a safe bet.

Once they had crossed the long stretch of corridor to the office (which had, on either side, rows of cells, which Phil gulped at and tried his hardest not to look into), Joe stopped in his tracks, and held out his arms to stop everyone else.

“Why the hell is there a huge brick directly in front of the door that wasn’t there a couple of hours ago when we were setting up the static cameras and stocking up?” Joe asked into the walkie-talkie, and Phil peered over his friend’s shoulder, his gaze falling on the object Joe described, a simple brick laying directly in front of the door.

What caused a shiver down his spine was the fact that the walls around them weren’t brick, and they hadn’t passed a decaying wall thus far. Also, Phil and Louise were the ones to set up most of the static cameras around the prison earlier in the day, and he could confirm that there definitely wasn’t a brick there when they left.

“It just landed out of nowhere, it had to have been thrown. With force, too.” Alfie informed them from base, probably watching them from the static camera they had positioned at the end of the corridor.

“Do you know when exactly it was thrown?” Zoe asked through her own walkie-talkie, her gaze also on the brick. Phil wasn’t sure why they were all studying it so intensely, he was almost certain nothing would happen after it had already been interacted with, the spirit was likely lacking in energy after such a feat.

“Directly after Louise asked if you should be afraid” Caspar confirmed, and the Sugg siblings turned to each other with matching grins on their faces.

“So that’s pretty much the clearest ‘yes’ they could give us” Joe was practically jumping up and down on the spot, and Zoe was informing the viewers, just in case either camera’s audio didn’t pick it up clearly enough.

Phil had a sinking feeling in his stomach, one he’d never felt so early in an investigation before. The interaction with the spirit known as ‘Dan’ had really shook him up, and he didn’t know why.

“Which cells did the guy say were the most active?” Louise asked, and sure enough, Zoe and Joe had the information memorised.

“Six fifteen, two fifty three, one three two, seventy four” Zoe reeled them off on her fingers, and Joe clapped his hands together.

“How convenient, one for each of us. I call dibs on seventy four!” he turned to face Phil’s camera, speaking directly to their future viewers. “Cell number seventy four housed the prison’s most notorious murderer, Adam Millington. I’m going to provoke him, hopefully get some good activity.”

He then walked into the warden’s office to pick up a spare camera to take with him, since all four of them would be in completely different places in a few minutes’ time. The thought made Phil’s stomach churn slightly, he wasn’t sure why he was so intimidated by the place.

“Be careful!” Zoe called after her brother as he began walking back down the corridor, the brick in one hand, his camera balanced in the crook of his other arm, already beginning his provocation.

“Okay so three left, which ones do you guys want?” she asked sweetly, and even through the dim, dingy filter of his night vision camera, Phil could see the determination and undeniable excitement glimmering in Zoe’s eyes.

“Whichever one was Daniel Howell’s cell, Phil should go there.” Louise stated decisively, and Phil turned to face her, his camera too, panic probably panned across his face, and Zoe pressed her lips together. “Come on, it makes perfect sense! Phil’s the only one he’s directly communicated with!” Louise justified her suggestion, and Zoe pressed a finger lightly to her chin.

“That’s presuming that the spirit of ‘Dan’ was Daniel Howell” she reminded her friend, and Louise sighed.

“Who else would it bloody be?” she protested.

“Fine, fine. Phil, you’re in two fifty three.” Zoe informed him, and Phil nodded, though the hairs on the back of his neck were already on edge, and he daren’t look if he already had goosebumps on his arms.

“Meet back here in half an hour, okay? Walkie-talkie us if anything goes wrong and one of us will be there soon.” Zoe reminded him before Phil set on his way, shaking hands and nerves in overdrive. He was nervous before every investigation, of course, he’d have to be made of stone not to be after the kind of stuff he’d had to witness and suffer through because of his job, but something about this investigation in particular unnerved him even more.

Probably because Daniel Howell was the exact same age as Phil when he died, and the fact he was unfairly prisoned, when he was completely innocent. The four weren’t sure exactly what Daniel was jailed for, they hoped to find out in the interviews the following day from some of the locals. They only knew the basics from what the owner of the penitentiary had informed them about in their plea for the building to be investigated.

As Phil reached the cell block and stood outside the four walls where Daniel Howell spent the last of his days, he felt a little breathless, causing the camera to shake in his hands a little.

He flipped the camera around to himself, and angled it a safe distance away so he wouldn’t look absolutely repulsive when the time came to edit the footage post-investigation.

“So I’m here outside of cell two fifty three, Daniel Howell’s cell,” Phil gasped as he heard a metallic bang somewhere down the corridor, but shook it off and continued informing the future viewers. “I’m going to be trying to communicate with him for the next half an hour, probably through EVPs and the spirit box, and yeah, let’s try and find out some stuff!” he gave the camera a cheesy thumbs up, giving himself a temporary positivity and confidence boost in the process, before turning the camera back around to the view in front of him, and he opened the cell door, it squeaked on its hinges, causing Phil to cringe.

As he sat on the concrete slab that would once have hosted a flat mattress, he took a deep breath, and set his camera beside him and placed an EVP recorder in front of him.

His palms were clammy as he prepared to address the one spirit he felt a strange pang of sympathy for, taken before his time.

\--------

Phil’s eyes skimmed over the gritty bricks of the cells, and he flicked his flashlight above the door, and a chill ran down his spine when he saw ‘DAN’ etched into the brick, in a messy scrawl.

He was definitely in the right place.

Beside him, beside what would have been Dan’s bed, he saw lines etched onto the wall that stretched all along the perimeter of the cell. A tally chart of how long he was falsely imprisoned there, Phil presumed.

“Okay, I’m going to actually start” he told the camera with a shaky laugh, and after a deep breath turned the flashlight off, and fumbled around to his camera and switched to night vision. He was in pitch darkness, alone with whatever spirits were roaming the corridor.

Immediately, he felt the energy in the little cell rise, and a cold breeze surrounded him, making him shudder.

He momentarily gazed down to the EVP recorder, its red light was still prominent.

“Do you remember me from earlier?” he called out, addressing whatever – more likely, _whoever_ – was listening, his voice bounced from the cell walls. “Is anyone here?”

He was slightly surprised to be met with silence, the penitentiary had been anything but silent thus far. Maybe his friends were having more luck.

“Come and talk to me, whoever’s here, speak into this bright red light here” Phil prompted, gesturing to the recorder, forgetting that he didn’t need to do so.

Again, silence.

After asking a few more questions and receiving no response, leaving more than adequate time between each one, Phil felt himself become slightly antsy, somewhat unnerved. His hands were shaking, but he managed to switch off the recorder and pick up the camera, quickly informing the viewers that he didn’t hear anything himself, but Alfie and Caspar would analyse the footage overnight.

“Phil, talk to me” Louise’s concerned voice crackled through the walkie-talkie in his back pocket, and he angled the camera in one arm and retrieved the device with his free hand.

“What’s up, Lou?” he asked, biting his lip as he shifted the camera to a more comfortable position.

“What do you mean ‘what’s up’? You were meant to rendezvous with us at the office nearly ten minutes ago!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he was slightly taken aback, Louise was the one of the group that pushed for perfect punctuality in all of their investigations.

“I tried to! I tried to call you on here four times, you didn’t pick up!” she had raised her voice, but the frustration in her voice was washed out by the crackling and poor quality.

Phil felt his blood run cold, his walkie-talkie hadn’t gone off once. They were all state of the art, and were thoroughly tested before every investigation, they didn’t fail, ever.

His palms were clammy again, and he was shaking as he pressed the speak button on the walkie-talkie.

“It,” he swallowed back a bubble of fear, “It didn’t go off…”

“What?” Joe had apparently joined in the conversation on his own device.

“It didn’t go off once…” Phil repeated, followed by nothing but silence from his friends.

He shrugged and placed it back into his pocket and stepped out of Dan’s cell to set to regroup with the others. As he did so, he stumbled straight back in, his equilibrium thrown completely off-balance by an unknown cause, and the icy cold breeze re-introduced itself, this time whipping around his legs.

In the same moment, he was overcome with sadness. Feelings of isolation, devastation, underlying distraught. Tears even began to pool in his eyes, and his brain had no idea why. His logic had no idea why. There was no explanation, the only feeling he had before was nervousness, considering his high-tech technology had apparently decided to stop working the second he stepped into the cell. He only hoped the camera had recorded his EVP session, and that the recorder had indeed been recording.

Something clicked in his mind.

“Dan?” his voice was little more than a whisper, his throat was dry. It was naturally hoarse, considering how sad he’d become all of a sudden. “Is it you doing this to me?”

He was going out on a limb, presuming the spirit of Daniel Howell was even trapped in the prison in the first place. Phil kind of hoped he’d been able to move on, after his life ended in arguably the worst way possible.

It was probably naïve of him to assume that Daniel Howell would even be the spirit that was using its energy to manifest its emotions onto him.

It was the only logical explanation, and it wasn’t the first time it had happened to Phil in his career, it had happened to all four of them. For a lot of spirits, it was their only way of communicating since they were being oppressed by other, larger spirits, and were terrified of trying to speak.

As soon as Phil spoke, addressed Dan directly, everything just… stopped.

The temperature in the cell returned to normal, no longer icy cold, and he no longer felt distraught, he was back at nervousness. Understandably with now added fear. But also an undeniable sense of excitement.

He quickly dashed out of the cell, and immediately turned to face where he had just escaped from, fumbled for his flashlight and shone it in the space. He wasn’t expecting to see anything, it would just have been the icing on the cake, but he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed when he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

He pressed his lips together before trying a final time.

“I’m addressing the spirit of Daniel Howell,” Phil took a breath before continuing, making sure his camera was definitely filming, “Dan, if you’re the one communicating with me, give me a sign.”

Phil waited with bated breath, hoping for a sign of some kind, and he took to flipping his camera from side to side to capture a wider variety of footage, just in case it picked up something he didn’t with his own eyes.

In the near distance, there was a metallic rattling, as if someone was pulling against the bars of one of the cells, and a few seconds later, the icy cold breeze returned, wrapping around his torso this time.

A smile crept up on Phil’s lips as he informed the viewers what he’d just witnessed, before heading down the corridor to regroup with his fellow investigators, making sure to whisper a ‘thank you’ into the nothingness that he had just walked from, in the hopes that a certain twenty-three year old spirit heard him.


	3. Three.

As soon as Phil returned, all three of his friends opened their mouths to begin bombarding him with questions, but he simply held up a hand to silence them all a little longer, to say something before they had a chance to.

“Before you start firing questions, I want a static camera set up outside Daniel Howell’s cell.” He requested, and Joe immediately nodded, then ducked into the office, emerging a few seconds later with a fresh, unused camera and tripod in his hands.

“I’ll go set these up, as soon as I get back, you’re telling us everything” he stated before heading in the direction Phil had just arrived from, leaving Phil alone with Zoe and Louise.

Louise had her camera focused on Phil, and flicked it onto Zoe when she began to speak.

“I won’t ask the obvious until Joe gets back,” she assured him, “But are you okay?”

“I’m fine, honestly” Phil assured her, and Zoe pressed her lips together.

“Phil, we’re friends first, colleagues second. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Phil smiled at her concern, it was reassuring to know that even with the profession they were in and how famous they were now as a result of it, she still cared about him. He knew she’d be the same even if Louise’s camera wasn’t pointed at her, it wouldn’t make it into the final cut anyway.

“I’m fine, got out unscathed. But I’ll tell you everything when Joe gets back, like you said.”

Louise shut off her camera until Joe returned.

The co-lead investigator returned a couple of minutes later, finishing off a walkie-talkie conversation.

“Okay, Caspar confirms the camera outside Howell’s cell is up and running, we’ll catch anything that happens there now” Joe smiled, then he clapped his hands together. “So tell us everything, what happened? Did you get any evidence? Did anything communicate with you?”

Zoe and Louise were also evidently intrigued, and Louise had once again gotten her camera focused on Phil, ready for him to retell his experience.

“I strongly believe I made contact with his spirit.”

Zoe’s eyes lit up.

“Daniel Howell’s?” she asked for clarification, and Phil nodded.

“I almost kind of feel weird calling him that now, I feel like we should refer to him as Dan now, I saw it scrawled above his cell door…” Phil explained.

“Some spirits take shortening their names as disrespect, Phil.” Joe warned, “Are you sure you want to run that risk?”

It was true, and on the odd occasion in the past the group had made that mistake, it hadn’t been pretty. Some spirits even turned violent.

“I’m sure, I feel like if he referred to himself by it then it might help us relate to him a bit more?” Phil suggested, and Joe nodded.

“Fair enough. Carry on” he prompted.

“I think he made a connection with me, too.”

Louise gasped from behind the camera.

“Did you catch an EVP?” she asked excitedly.

Phil shrugged. “Maybe the recorder did, but I didn’t hear anything with my own ears, we’ll see when Alfie and Caspar analyse it tomorrow. But every time I addressed him, from the second I went into the cell there was an icy cold breeze around me.”

“Promising sign” Joe was getting increasingly excited, Phil could hear it in his voice. “And just so you know,” he turned to Louise’s camera, speaking to the future viewers, “There are barely any windows in this place, and none on any of the storeys with cell blocks on, so there’s no way there was any outside contamination for what Phil experienced” he informed them.

“And I think he might have passed through me?” it was Phil’s _piece de resistance,_ and with the way the three other investigators gasped, his choice was rightly placed.

“What, like emotional manipulation?” Louise asked, and Phil nodded.

“Hold on. As amazing as this is, why are we so sure that it’s Dan that made contact? It could easily be a meaner spirit disguising itself…” Zoe reminded them all of the more grim alternative reality.

“I mean, he responded when I prompted him to before I left too, I caught it on camera I think…” Phil added, and Zoe pressed her lips together.

“We’ll wait to see what evidence we get in the morning, then judge from there,” she smiled, and Phil suddenly cast doubt on his own experience, he couldn’t afford to be naïve in the job he was in, it had always been his biggest downfall, probably why the meaner spirits tended to pick on him. He always needed an extra blessing or two when the group went to a religious figure before each investigation.

“But for the next few hours until the sun comes up, we’ll just run some routine EVP and spirit box sessions. Tomorrow onwards we’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with and how to approach the rest of the week’s investigation” she instructed, capturing the attention of the three around her.

“Louise, you’re with Joe, go to Adam Millington’s cell. Phil, you’re with me, we’ll go back to try and communicate with Dan Howell.”

The group then split into pairs, Joe practically buzzing off the walls, repeating how excited he was to see what evidence they’d gotten thus far. Phil hoisted his own camera onto his shoulder and began filming Zoe as he followed her back to where he had not long since came from, as Zoe informed the viewers what was happening and how day one of investigating would soon be over.

As soon as they arrived at the end of the corridor, Dan Howell’s cell at the end of it, Phil felt the familiar cold breeze around his legs, it made him shudder slightly.

“Um, Zoe?” he called to his friend, who spun on her heels and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah?” she didn’t seem affected by anything, which made Phil’s heart beat that much faster.

“Do you,” his words got caught in his throat, “Do you have a cold breeze around you right now?”

She frowned.

“No, not at all, I’m surprisingly warm. I presume you do, though?”

All Phil could do was nod. It was almost as if he was being targeted.

“All the more reason for us to do this” she grinned, and walked back a few steps to stand beside Phil, and whipped out a spirit box from her back pocket. “Wait, holy crap it’s really freezing down here” she dangled her fingers downwards into the cold air.

“I told you!” Phil had little time for saying anything else, as Zoe immediately began asking questions, hoping for a response via the spirit box.

As they listened for voices through the white noise, Phil felt another chill run up his spine, it made the camera shake in his hands.

He took a deep breath and steadied his breathing, but his mind couldn’t help but wonder about what the rest of the week might possibly bring, or, more likely, _who_ it might possibly bring.

\---

“Well that was a bust” Zoe sighed as she and Phil closed their final spirit box session of the night.

They hadn’t gotten a single response, even though Zoe tried provoking whatever spirits may be lurking, and making herself seem vulnerable. Phil had let his friend take full control, he stuck to filming and telling her his observations, she had been in the paranormal investigator field longer than him, anyway.

“It’s the risk we take, sometimes they can be active one minute, and deadly silent the next” Phil shrugged as they made their way back to the front entrance, and Zoe laughed.

“Did you deliberately mean to make that terrible pun?”

“I didn’t, but you know what, I’ll take that pity laugh” Phil replied, and the two shared a laugh.

When they were halfway down the staircase, both of them stopped in their tracks.

Zoe held up a finger to stay silent for a little while longer, and Phil fumbled around with his camera, powering it up as quickly as possible to try and pick up what they both just heard with their own ears, in their own sound frequency.

After a tense few seconds of silence, Zoe turned to face Phil, a wide grin on her lips.

“You heard that really clear male laugh too, right?” she asked for clarification, and Phil nodded. “Did the camera catch it?”

Phil shook his head and pressed his lips together. “I think I was just a couple of seconds too late.”

“Never mind. It sounded close though, didn’t you think?”

“Eerily close” Phil agreed, shutting his camera down again.

When they arrived at the entrance, Joe and Louise were still on their way (they had walkie-talkied to inform them).

“Do you think that laugh was Dan?” Zoe asked out of the blue, startling Phil slightly.

“What makes you think that?” Phil asked out of curiosity.

Zoe shrugged. “The spirit we’re believing to be him seems to have taken a liking to you, that’s all. Maybe he laughed at your terrible pun to get you to like him.”

Phil rolled his eyes playfully. “That’s a bit of a stretch, Zo.”

“It could happen!” she protested, “But I think we need to be a little more cautious, otherwise you could end up with an-“

“I’m not going to get an attachment.”

“Not if we’re careful, you won’t” Zoe reminded him, and Phil rolled his eyes again.

Before any could say another word, Joe and Louise arrived. They let themselves out, effectively wrapping up their first night of investigating, the early morning sunlight immediately enveloping the four.

“Fucking hell I didn’t realise how little light was in that place until I stepped into this” Joe complained, shielding his eyes.

“Stop whining, Joseph,” Louise swatted his arm lightly, “We need to get a few hours sleep and then it’s an afternoon of interviews before coming back here, right?”

Zoe nodded. “Alfie scheduled us some interviews with some locals starting from two up until six.”

“Speaking of, I’ll walkie them to let them know we’re out and they can go collect the cameras to review” Joe excused himself to do just that, leaving Phil and the two girls to pack up the equipment they had on them at that moment.

“So did you two get anything?” Louise asked once they had all taken their seats in the car, waiting for Joe’s return.

Zoe giggled. “Dan has the hots for Phil.”

“Zoe!” Phil exclaimed, turning to face his petite friend who was sat with Louise behind him.

“That’s all kinds of wrong” Louise wrinkled her nose, Zoe laughed again.

“No but seriously, it’s a lot of evidence to get on the first night, he even spoke to you in the first five minutes of being there, it does seem like he’s taken a liking to you…”

“If it’s even Dan Howell in the first place” Louise reminded them, and Phil nodded.

“We’ll see what Alfie and Caspar make of the footage and recordings.”

Zoe raised an eyebrow. “I have a good feeling.”

Phil wasn’t sure if he did too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact; I saw Joe and Caspar on tour last night and whilst I was editing this chapter today, every time I saw their names it made me bawl my eyes out because I miss them so much wow


	4. Four.

Phil didn’t realise how tired he was until his head hit the pillow, he was fast asleep in under five minutes.

_It didn’t feel like a dream, it felt far too vivid. But it was almost as if he was floating above what was happening._

_The setting around him was familiar, somewhere he’d been to recently. He looked around for any distinguishing features, and his gaze fell upon the etchings on the walls, that stretched all around the room. He turned to face the door, and a gasp caught in his throat when he saw the very same scrawl of ‘DAN’ that he’d investigated just a few hours prior. He was aware._

_It was then that the room felt constricted, significantly smaller, and he barely felt as if he blinked, but everything had changed._

_The etchings on the walls were fresher, the stone of the cell nowhere near as faded and dated, a thin mattress laid on the platform at the back of the cell. A man sat upon it, brown hair swept across his face. The sleeves of his faded orange prison uniform were balled over his hands, and pressed into his eyes._

_Phil couldn’t hear anything, but from the way the man’s head was slightly bobbing up and down, he deduced that he was crying. It broke his heart a little bit._

_Phil looked around the cell again, turned around to look through the bars, and gasped as he saw every cell around him was filled, big burly men and stick-thin weedy men alike banging against their own cell bars, their mouths opening and closing, Phil presumed they were either heckling or throwing profanities at one another, but he couldn’t hear a word._

_He pressed his lips together as he turned back around, and his head nearly hit the ceiling as he came face-to-face with the brunet, close enough that, if this were a real life scenario and if he were real, Phil would feel the other man’s breath on his face._

_The man cocked his head to the side and bit his lip, and Phil had no idea what was happening. Could the man even see him? Hear him? Know he was there?_

_Phil slowly lifted his arm and waved at the man, a small gesture, testing._

_The man slowly waved back, still seemingly puzzled._

_Phil whispered a string of curse words under his breath as he pondered what he could do, what he should do, he could wake up at any moment._

_“Are-are you Daniel Howell?”_

_The man nodded, a friendly smile spreading across his lips. He held out a hand, Phil’s went straight through it. Dan pouted._

_He spoke something, but Phil had no idea. He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t hear anything, or why it seemed to be only Dan that could see him._

_“Why are you crying?”_

_Phil focused on Dan’s lips to tell what he was saying._

_‘I shouldn’t be here.’_

_“How did you die?”_

_Dan furrowed his eyebrows._

_‘I’m not dead, I’m right here.’_

_Phil’s eyes widened. He knew this was a dream, but he’d never experienced anything like it. The (albeit one-sided) conversation with Dan seemed so real. He’d never known any of his friends have an experience like this. Only a handful of cases had ever been reported in paranormal history._

_“Do you know who I am?”_

_Dan smiled and nodded._

_‘You’re Phil.’_

_Phil’s mind was blown. He didn’t know how this was possible, his imagination wasn’t creative enough to make all this up._

_‘You were in my cell before, I was here too.’_

_Phil squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to comprehend what was happening. If Zoe, Joe and Louise would even believe him when he told them about it. Or if it would just be put down to exhaustion and his mind running away with him. How this was happening, he had no clue._

_“Who killed you?”_

_Phil tried again, though he wasn’t sure if Dan was ready to acknowledge the fact he was dead. Or maybe he wasn’t and this was some kind of parallel universe or Phil had time travelled or something, he didn’t know anymore._

_Dan opened his mouth to reply, but he was suddenly frozen in place, eyes widened in fear, staring at something behind Phil._

_Phil turned around, and took a startled step back as he saw three big, burly men stood in the doorway of Dan’s cell, the cell door open as well as all the others on the row. The man in the middle pounded his fist into his other palm threateningly, the other two men beside him snickered._

_Phil focused on the guy in the middle, and focused in on him to read his lips, as he still couldn’t hear a thing for a reason he didn’t know._

_‘Come on, Howell. Playtime, pretty boy.’_

_Before he could even begin to wonder what that could mean, the middle guy lunged forward and grabbed Dan, yanking him out of his cell. He pushed Dan onto the ground, and immediately began violently kicking him, the other two guys joining in too._

_Phil began screaming at them to stop, and tried to run towards them, but he couldn’t move, he could only watch, it definitely only seemed to be Dan that could hear him, as when Phil began screaming, Dan looked over at him desperately, wincing every few seconds when a new kick or punch was delivered._

_He made eye contact with Phil, pure fear in his eyes, and his mouth opened for a final time._

_‘Help.’_

\--

Phil had rarely been simultaneously more thankful yet resentful at his alarm.

Though he couldn’t help but feel slightly relieved when his eyes snapped open and he was greeted with the surroundings of the cushy hotel room.

He had woken up in a cold sweat, understandably considering the dream he’d just had, and he wasted no time in throwing the duvet off of his body and heading towards Joe’s hotel room at the end of the corridor, knocking on Louise and Zoe’s doors as he ran past them.

A dishevelled Joe slowly opened the door, evidently still half asleep.

“Mate no offence but what the fuck, it’s only ten, we’ve had a killer night and I kind of just want to sleep for-“

“I think I had direct contact with one of the prisoners.”

That perked Joe up.

“Which one? How? When?” he was not short of questions, though he was clearly excited.

Phil waited a couple of seconds for Zoe and Louise to arrive, and when they did, they were in the same state Joe was, half asleep and unwilling to communicate with the world just yet.

“What did you want us for?” Louise asked, hiding a yawn behind her hand. An action that Zoe mirrored.

“Phil says he made direct contact with one of the prisoners!” Joe sounded like a child on Christmas day.

“It wouldn’t by any chance be Dan Howell, would it?” Zoe asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I think you might be right about what you said before” Phil admitted.

“About the attachment?” she asked, concern panning across her face.

“No, about the taking a liking to me part.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “You had me worried for a second, there. But I told you!”

“Yeah yeah, you’re a genius and all that Zo” Joe rolled his eyes at his sister, “But tell us everything that happened” he turned back to Phil, his eyes all but glittering.

And so Phil did.

“Fuck, that’s brutal” Louise said in a muffled voice, a hand over her mouth in shock.

“Right, that’s it, I don’t want Phil in the penitentiary tonight” Zoe threw her hands up in the air, and Joe shot her a shocked look.

“Are you fucking joking? There’s never been a better time for him to go back! A spirit is clearly fond of him, he can get us the answers!”

The siblings were arguing as if Phil and Louise weren’t in the room.

“There’s a fine line between fondness and an attachment, Joseph! You know that all too well!” Zoe snapped, and Joe ran a hand through his hair.

“Fine, we won’t send him in for the full night. He can sit with Alfie and Caspar at base for half of the night then join us for the second, we won’t split up tonight, deal?”

Zoe sighed.

“Fine. But he’s not being left alone for a second, okay?”

Joe nodded.

“Is that alright with you, buddy?” Joe suddenly acknowledged Phil’s presence again, and Phil was still too stunned at the dream he’d had to argue. Perhaps it would be for the best, observing from base whilst his friends made contact with Dan instead, and maybe his attackers that Phil had seen (kind of) first-hand.

“I still don’t like it, but it’s the lesser option of two evils” Zoe mumbled, and Phil shot her a reassuring smile. She didn’t return it.

“How about some food, since we’re all up?” Louise broke the awkward silence, jumping up from her seat and clapping her hands together. “We have a few hours until the interviews start and we all have a big night ahead of us, plus Alfie and Caspar won’t be finished reviewing last night’s footage yet!”

The suggestion was met with nothing more than grunts of agreement.

As Phil quickly went back in his room to grab his phone and camera ready for the interviews, he took a look in the mirror and shivered, he looked horrible. Tired didn’t cover it, it was probably a good thing he wouldn’t be on camera a lot later on.

Once he’d straightened out his shirt and tied his laces, he took one last look at himself, and once he decided that he couldn’t look much better without a hundred more hours of sleep, he shrugged and set for the door.

He tried his hardest to ignore the fact he saw a figure dart past his bathroom door, he was almost sure a brown mop of hair sat atop its head.


	5. Five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! First of all thank you so much for all the support so far on the story it genuinely does mean the world to me and comments keep me going, but secondly there's a brief mention of death (only a line) in this chapter so just be aware of that
> 
> Also, if you follow me on tumblr you might remember a couple of weeks ago I asked you to send me your favourite youtubers for a 'secret reason' well here's the reason, congrats if you submitted one of their names i'm proud of you
> 
> (And click subscribe at the top of the page to get email notifications whenever I post a new chapter so you can be the first to read it!)

“That dream still might be your mind playing tricks on you” Louise whispered as she and Phil took their seats in the back of the car.

“Do you think it is?” Phil replied, and he watched as Louise frowned.

“No.”

“Thanks” Phil laughed, and Louise did her best to replicate it, but it came out shaky.

Phil wasn’t sure why Zoe and Louise seemed to be more affected by the whole thing than he was, that in itself unnerved him.

Before he could comment again, Joe and Zoe got in the front seats, and Joe started up the car.

“Late breakfast then get ready for interviews?” he asked the group, and was met with three nods.

The ride was pretty quiet, almost silent, Joe and Zoe occasionally mumbled to one another, seemingly in an argument, but Phil couldn’t make anything out considering he had an earphone in, drowning out his thoughts with a random playlist.

As soon as they pulled up outside of the diner where the majority of their interviews were taking place later in the day, a heavy atmosphere hung over the group. Louise and Phil retrieved their cameras from the boot of the car in silence, whilst Zoe and Joe were already securing the biggest table in the building, to accommodate all the cameras and various other technology they all had with them.

“Who’s the first interview?” Phil asked once they had all ordered their late breakfast.

“A girl called Dodie,” Zoe replied, looking up from her phone where Alfie had sent over the list of interviewees they had, “Apparently her great great great grandmother was the girlfriend of one of the most notorious prisoners.”

“Don’t tell me it’s Adam Millington” Joe groaned, and Zoe bit back a laugh.

“Surprise surprise, your best bud” she smirked, and Joe sighed.

“Did you make contact with him?” Louise asked whilst polishing her camera lens ready for the interviews.

“I think so, but we’ll have to wait until Caspar analyses the footage” he shrugged, and Phil nodded in understanding, he’d also wondered the same thing.

He wasn’t the only one that couldn’t wait for the analysis to be completed, obviously.

\--

“Can you tell us everything that you know about the penitentiary?” Zoe asked the pretty brunette girl sat across from her.

“According to my grandma, she used to talk about it a lot,” Dodie laughed, “All I know has kind of been passed down through the generations considering none of us have ever moved out of town” she explained.

Zoe nodded, and Joe sat beside her, notebook open in front of him and pen in hand. Louise was filming Dodie, and Phil was filming Joe and Zoe.

“So my great great great grandmother was basically having it off with the worst guy in there,” Dodie shrugged, “And he used to dish the dirt whenever she went to visit. He was pretty much in charge, could rally most of the other prisoners with the flick of his wrist. When they had their free time every day, they used to gang up on some of the weaker prisoners.”

Phil let out a deep breath, trying his hardest not to relive the dream where he had seen just that. Perhaps the guy in the middle of the three that stood in Dan’s doorway was Adam Millington, the angry spirit which Joe was desperate to make contact with.

“Do you happen to know which prisoners?” Joe asked politely, tapping his pen against the page.

“The names are generally a bit hazy considering it’s practically a game of Chinese whispers passed down through the generations, but I remember one in particular considering they ragged on him the most” she leaned back in her seat and smiled at the siblings, happy to be providing them with information.

“Would you mind telling us which?” Joe persisted, and Dodie nodded.

“Daniel Howell.”

Immediately, Louise sent Phil a concerned glance from where she stood opposite him, and Zoe flicked her gaze to Phil momentarily, and pressed her lips in a fine line.

Joe had apparently taken control of the interview.

“Why him and not any of the others?” he asked, pen poised ready to add to his notes.

“They used to gang up on him because he was the odd one out. He was much younger than everyone else, he was in there for a crime he didn’t commit, and more than anything else, he was gay. They didn’t take kindly to that in those days.”

“That’s disgusting” Zoe commented, drumming her fingers on the table. Phil wondered if she was feeling particularly anxious, drumming her fingers was a coping mechanism of hers.

“You’re telling me,” Dodie smiled slightly, “Adam used to gloat about it every day, apparently he was giving him what he deserved and all that shit. Hope that prick got his comeuppance before he died.”

“Was Dan Howell’s sexuality common knowledge?” Joe asked, and Dodie pondered the question for a little while, pausing to take a sip of her tea. Joe did the same.

“I think so. Nobody ever went to visit him as far as I know, so it probably made him feel a million times more alone. Poor thing.”

“Was he local to the area before he was imprisoned, do you know?” Zoe asked, filling in for her brother who was quickly scribbling down more notes.

Dodie shrugged. “Nobody knows. He never had anyone visit, no family, no friends, he couldn’t be traced.”

Phil was apparently in some sort of daze, as he only seemed to blink and Dodie had left the diner, his friends were discussing what they had found out from her.

“You said that in your dream, three guys were beating Dan to a pulp, right?” Louise asked Phil, visibly wincing as she said the words.

Phil nodded.

“And you said that he knew your name?” Joe asked, and Phil nodded again.

“We can’t put it down to chance anymore,” Zoe slammed her hands on the table, “Dan’s clearly lonely and has taken a liking to Phil, if he goes back to the penitentiary alone it’s more than likely that he’ll get an attachment!”

“Calm down, chummy” Louise rubbed comforting circles on Zoe’s back as it was obvious Zoe was hurtling at full force to a panic attack.

“How about we let Phil decide?” Joe patted his sister’s shoulder and turned to Phil. “What are you feeling like doing tonight, considering what we know now? Want to take that chance?”

Phil considered it. Would having Dan attached to him be such a terrible idea? It might encourage him to move to the light, given that nobody ever visited him in prison and he was unfairly victimised. He was probably terrified.

But at the same time he was a paranormal investigator, he knew the overwhelming risks with having an attachment. The cleansings and blessings to remove them only worked around 90% of the time. And if they were all wrong, and it wasn’t Dan trying to communicate, Phil could be stuck with a negative spirit plaguing him for the rest of his life.

He had given it a lot more thought since they asked him the first time back in the hotel room.

“I’ll stay in base for the first while, see how you guys get on” he replied decisively, and Zoe smiled.

\--

Their second (and final, they pushed the rest of them back to the next day, as Alfie and Caspar were finished reviewing the first night’s footage and there was a _lot_ according to the two experts) interview of the day was with a guy called PJ, whose great great grandfather was a warden at the prison.

“Have you ever been inside Harrowick?” Joe asked, this time Zoe was the scribe, the nib of the pen mere millimetres from the page.

“You couldn’t pay me to go inside that place,” PJ laughed, “I was forbidden as a child from going anywhere near the place, and I’m forbidding myself as an adult.”

“Why’s that?” Joe asked as a follow-up, and PJ rested his hands on the table.

“My grandad told me the stories that his grandad told him from his days as a warden there. The scariest ass shit ever, I swear.”

“Care to share some of them?” Joe asked with an encouraging smile.

“Well he had to break up prison brawls pretty much every day. Apparently it was always the same couple of guys that everyone ragged on, the weakest links I’d assume, easy targets. They even beat one guy to death” PJ explained.

Louise shifted her camera on her shoulder, obviously uncomfortable.

“From our research we found out that there were twelve murders by other inmates” Joe informed him, and PJ nodded.

“Then your research is very much correct,” he confirmed, “But the rest were brutal stabbings and cuttings and the like. Only one was by beating and blood loss.”

“Forgive me for going out on a limb here,” Phil decided to speak up, taking everyone by surprise and having all attention diverted to him (even Louise moved her camera from PJ to focus on Phil), “That death wouldn’t by any chance be Daniel Howell, would it?”

PJ shook his head, and Phil let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

“No, but I can understand why you thought that. That poor bastard was as good as dead a handful of times though, in and out of the medic centre all the time. My great grandad took him and brought him back most times considering he monitored that storey of cells. Dan very rarely left his cell during free time unless he was dragged out to be beaten, the wardens were never quick enough. He eventually died when a mentally insane inmate snapped and went on a rampage in the middle of the night one day, somehow managed to get the cell door open and stabbed him to death.”

Phil nodded in understanding, and bit his lip. Not knowing what to think was quickly becoming the norm for him.

“Have you made any contact with anyone there yet? The whole town’s buzzing about having the best ghost hunting show on tv here” PJ asked excitedly.

“You’ll have to wait until the episode airs to see” Zoe teased, “But you’ve been a big help to us, thank you so much.” She stretched out to shake his hand, and he then proceeded to shake everyone’s hand before bidding his goodbyes and leaving the diner.

“A fuck ton to work with tonight” Joe stated cheerfully as he looked over the notes from both interviews, taking a bite from a piece of toast he buttered but never ate when they first arrived.

“Yeah, can’t wait” Louise rolled her eyes, and Joe swatted her arm.

“This is what we thrive upon, it’s our job, our livelihood!” he sounded as if he was giving a motivational speech, and it made Phil laugh.

“Why do you always go like this whenever we get a lead on an investigation” Zoe shook her head at her brother, though she spoke with clear amusement in her tone.

“This time I feel like we’re really honing in on something,” he was still studying his notes, “I have a feeling it’s going to be an eventful night.”

Phil did too, and he wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.


	6. Six.

“Okay _so,”_ Caspar spun around eagerly in his seat as he turned from his monitor to face the group of investigators, “Whose evidence do you want to start with?”

“We all got something?” Louise asked, and Alfie nodded, though he was still focusing on his laptop, finalising the edit of the footage so far.

“To an extent, some more than others” he explained, and Caspar pointed at Phil.

“Specifically you” he revealed, and Phil gulped. He shouldn’t be surprised, but he still was. “Your recorders and spirit box sessions were _insane.”_ Caspar was emphasising certain words, Phil wondered if he knew he was doing it, but his enthusiasm was matched only by Joe, who was practically jumping up and down on the bed.

“Well stop speaking about it and show us!” he exclaimed, taking a step closer to the monitor to have a look at the various files that Alfie and Caspar had to show them.

“Divert your attention to the screen, if you will” Caspar gestured to the projection screen, hooked up to his monitor. It displayed a variety of sound frequencies and volumes, ready to be played back. Phil could already see where a non-human voice was spoken.

“So this is right after Louise says that Phil should go to cell two fifty three.” Alfie explained before tapping on his laptop and the recording began to play.

Phil watched as the cursor flicked over the various decibels from the conversation, Zoe and Louise’s conversation would be left in to provide context for the viewers when the evidence was put in for the episode.

_“Whichever one was Daniel Howell’s cell, Phil should go there.”_ Louise cringed at hearing her voice in the playback, but Phil was focused on heightening his hearing as much as possible as the cursor moved onto the sound frequency far below any other.

“Did you hear it?” Caspar asked, and the group all shook their heads.

“It’s faint, so I’ll amplify it” Alfie tapped some keys on his laptop and played the audio again.

“ _Phil should go there.”_ Louise’s voice played again, and all six of them paid closer attention.

_‘Yes please.’_ An unidentified, disembodied voice presented itself, causing Louise to gasp.

“That’s an intelligent response…” she observed, and glanced over to Phil.

“The first of many” Caspar grinned, before Alfie clicked onto the next recording.

_“…setting up the static cameras and stocking up?”_ Joe’s voice played, this recording was from just after the group discovered the brick that had been thrown in front of the warden’s office.

Joe cupped a hand partly around his ear in an attempt to hear the voice better.

_‘That was me.’_

Joe clapped, a wide grin on his face.

“Another intelligent response, holy fuck!” he couldn’t contain his excitement, “And that one was a different voice from the last, different tone, do you think that was Adam Millington?” he asked everyone.

“We can’t rule it out,” Zoe shrugged, “It sure fits his profile, ruthless and all, he probably didn’t like that were in on his turf or something like that.”

“Then who was the first voice?” Phil asked, wary that he already knew the answer.

“I think we all already know who the first voice was, Philip.” Louise smirked, and Phil placed his head in his hands.

Caspar, who had already been filled in on Phil’s dream (as had Alfie), pressed his finger to his chin in mock contemplation.

“Yes, let us continue wondering who the first voice could be….” He nodded to Alfie, who clicked onto the next recording.

This time, however, it was split screen, the live camera footage playing alongside the audio in real time. It was from Phil’s solo investigation in Dan’s cell. He was sat cross-legged, the EVP recorder held out in his hand. He distinctly remembered that exact moment, it was only a couple of seconds after the cold breeze hit him.

_“Come and talk to me, whoever’s here, speak into this bright red light here.”_ His former self prompted, and Phil had the same reaction as Louise did to hearing himself on playback.

He managed to put it to one side as he studied the footage in front of him.

_‘It’s me,’_ the same voice as the first answered, _‘It’s Dan.’_

Joe cupped his hands over his mouth and stood up from the bed. Zoe gasped, and Phil felt all the blood rush from his face, and a chill down his spine.

“Are you actually fucking with me?” Joe practically shouted at Caspar, and the blond looked up at him with a grin, and shook his head. “This is class-A evidence!”

Joe reminded Phil of a cartoon character, so animated and enthusiastic about everything.

“It’s the exact same voice, same tone and pitch as the first one that replied to me…” Louise was trying to explain what she just heard to herself.

In their industry, it was incredibly rare to have the same spirit respond more than once, without the use of any editing software – like many of their rival shows were recently exposed of doing. Never mind to catch the same spirit twice, in such clear and crisp quality.

Dan’s responses could potentially put _Ghost and Seek_ even further up the respect, fame and fortune ladders. Phil wondered if spirits ever thought about what investigators do with the evidence they catch, maybe that’s why most don’t respond.

“Is there anything as groundbreaking as that left to go through?” Zoe asked calmly, and Joe looked at her as if she was crazy, not understanding why she wasn’t on the same level of giddiness he was.

“Only a few words and syllables, barely anything visual except a couple of orbs, could be residual” Alfie replied, and she nodded in understanding.

“In which case the rest can wait and we’ll see it in the final edit, we need time to rethink tonight’s plans” she informed the audio/visual experts, who both nodded.

“I just need to go switch out some of the statics before you go later” Caspar said as he grabbed some of their reserve cameras and a couple more batteries to take with him to base for the night’s investigation.

Zoe turned to her brother. “Can you make sure we have a couple of Ovilus’, Rem Pods and Mel Meters for tonight?”

Joe saluted.

“You got it, boss” he joked, and Zoe elbowed him gently in the ribs.

“What about the paranormal puck too? You can set it up in the cell and I can try to communicate with him from base?” Phil suggested, and Zoe clicked her fingers, as if having a eureka moment.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” she laughed, “It’s safer than you going back inside and it seems as if Dan has some kind of…”

“Don’t say attachment” Phil teased, and Zoe pouted.

“In lieu of a better word. Plus, it’s something we still can’t rule out!”

“We’ll all drive out to the city in an hour and get another cleansing, they’ll say Phil’s fine and you can calm yourself” Louise told her, and Zoe took a deep breath.

“Okay” she agreed, and Louise smiled.

“And with that drama over,” Joe was already stood at the door, “Let’s start night two.”

\--

“The cleansing process is now complete.” The spiritualist expert, Marzia, clasped her hands together and smiled at the group. Phil’s heart had been pounding erratically throughout the whole thing.

“And we’re all fine?” Zoe asked curiously, and Marzia nodded.

“Three of you were squeaky clean!” she explained, and moved to stand in front of Joe. “Though you need to take caution tonight, your aura has a dark influence in its shadow, it’s something to watch out for.”

“That’ll probably be my good buddy Adam” he mumbled, and Louise chuckled.

Marzia then walked over to stand in front of Phil, and placed her hands on his shoulders. “You were the hardest one of all.”

“How so?” Phil asked, his throat suddenly feeling like sandpaper.

Marzia cocked her head to one side and bit her lip. “Well… the good news is that it wasn’t a bad entity! Its aura was white.”

“And the bad news?” Joe asked, walking over to stand beside his friend, concern etched into his features.

“It was persistent. Its energy is something bigger than me, and it seemed as if it had already affected Phil’s energy…” her voice was significantly lower, and she removed her hands from Phil’s shoulders, sending her armful of bracelets clinking against each other.

Phil felt a chill run down his spine.

“So it’s an attachment?” Joe asked, voice monotone and face deadpan.

Phil was hanging on Marzia’s every word.

“I’m sorry, I’m not qualified to say.”

Joe pressed his lips together, and Phil saw Zoe retrieve her phone and begin tapping, Louise looking over her shoulder.

“Thank you, Miss Bisognin.” Joe said before turning on his heels and walking out of the house, leaving the other three to bid their hasty goodbyes and follow him.

Outside of the house, Phil found Joe leaning against a wall, running his hands through his hair. He walked over to sit on the wall.

“I don’t think it’s dangerous, Joe.” Phil admitted truthfully.

“I don’t know if we can take that risk, Phil. You know the thing about attachments. They can seem all pure and lovely one second then reveal themselves as demonic the next. It’s too risky.” Joe’s expression hadn’t changed.

“I’ve only been in this industry a year less than you have, I know all the risks and what to look for. It’s pretty obvious who the spirit is, don’t you think?”

Joe sighed. “Mate, I know how dedicated you are to this investigation, and believe me it’s amazing to have you in my group but, I can’t take that risk when an expert just practically confirmed you have an attachment. Zoe was right, you’re not coming back into the prison tonight at all, you can monitor us from base, we’ll get Alfie or Caspar to fill in until you’re cleared.”

Judging by Joe’s face, it seemed a hard decision for him to make. Phil imagined it was, considering how excited Joe was mere hours before in the hotel room when reviewing Dan’s voice on Phil’s EVPs. But Phil was certain that if he went back into the penitentiary, he could get even more solid evidence, maybe even find out how Dan died. If he was prepared to take the risk on his own safety, why wasn’t Joe?

“But Joe-“

“No buts.” Joe interjected, pushing himself up off of the wall. “I’m the lead investigator, and I’m not being responsible for you getting an attachment in such a fucking despicable place that’s filled with demonic scum like Adam Millington.”

He walked away before Phil could argue anymore.

Joe walked straight towards the car and got into the driver’s seat, Zoe and Louise were already in their seats ready to go. Phil silently slid into the back seat beside Louise, the tension was unbearable.

The girls didn’t seem to realise, or at least they didn’t acknowledge it. Louise was scrolling on her phone, and Zoe was still tapping on hers. Not a single word was spoken for at least ten minutes.

“There’s not a single church in any of the surrounding towns” Zoe announced, throwing her phone onto her lap in defeat. “Looks like you won’t be joining us inside again any time soon, Phil.”

Phil didn’t respond, and just kept looking out of the window. He spared a glance towards Joe for a second, and his hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were practically white, and his face was expressionless. Completely deadpan.

As he sighed inwardly, Phil couldn’t help but wonder how it had only taken a day for everything to fall apart.

\--

“I have to say this night seems highly anti-climactic compared to yesterday” Caspar rolled his eyes as he switched to the view of another static camera, picking up nothing out of the ordinary. As had been the case for the entire night.

Alfie was inside the penitentiary, investigating in Phil’s place, whilst Phil was stuck in base with Caspar. Not that it was completely bad, Caspar was one of his closest friends, as was Alfie, it was just that Phil would much rather be inside doing his job, getting to the bottom of things and collecting stellar evidence. The paranormal puck idea had also fallen flat too, which only elevated Phil’s boredom.

“Another faint knock on floor two” Caspar noted, writing the observation down onto a notepad alongside the time. “How the fuck has the rem pod not gone off?”

Phil never forgot his introductory lecture on ghost-hunting equipment. The definitions were etched into his brain forever.

_A rem pod gives off its own electromagnetic field. If a spirit breaks the field by getting close enough, the pod will sound, alerting everyone near it._

_A mel-meter is similar in purpose, but is in a handheld, portable form. It tracks the electromagnetic waves and levels. Be sure to mark the baseline before investigating, to be aware of any spikes in energy._

“How much longer until they leave?” Phil asked, resting his head on his hand.

Caspar glanced to his watch. “Not too long. They only have a spirit box and an EVP session to go, according to the schedule they mapped out” he handed Phil a piece of paper, exactly what Caspar said had been written in Louise’s cursive handwriting.

“Sorry that we ended up not being able to get the paranormal puck, by the way. I know it was the only saving grace of being stuck here in base.” Caspar apologised, and Phil smiled.

“It’s fine. They’re only looking out for me” he shrugged, glancing to the monitor where Caspar had clicked on the static camera closest to where the group was currently investigating.

“I can’t believe they’ve not gotten anything from Dan’s cell,” Caspar pursed his lips together, “It was so active last night when you were there!”

Phil fidgeted in his seat. “Maybe there will be something when we review it tomorrow?”

Caspar scoffed. “I doubt it. They did all of the EVP sessions in quick burst, remember? Listened to the playback live. They got nothing.”

The fact made Phil fidget again, something didn’t settle right with him.

“To be honest, I can’t wait to call a night on this one. You’re not going to get something every night, and we have five more days to go yet, we still have time.”

Phil nodded vigorously in agreement, wanting nothing more than his loving bed.

He felt refreshed when his friends came out of the penitentiary in the early hours, frowns on their faces and their disappointment evident. Joe and Zoe had even tried provoking the spirits, but to no avail.

“You’ll get ‘em next time!” Caspar fist pumped the air during his attempt at a pep talk as the group made their way back to the hotel, and the other four mumbled a string of curse words under their breath, Phil stifled a laugh behind his hand.

Back at the hotel, whilst everyone else went straight to their rooms to rest in preparation for the rest of the interviews later in the day, Joe pulled Phil to one side.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I was really tough with you earlier” he sounded sincerely apologetic, and it made Phil value their friendship that much more.

“It’s fine, honestly, I know you’re just being on the side of caution” he shrugged in response.

“I just don’t want your life to be ruined by something we can prevent, you know?”

“I sincerely feel like it isn’t dangerous, I haven’t had any of the symptoms, haven’t seen anything or heard anything out of the ordinary.” A little white lie. He hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary _that he was intimidated by_ would be more the truth.

Joe wiped his eyes and let out a yawn.

“We’ll discuss it properly later, yeah? When we’ve all got enough sleep in us and not running on coffee and energy drinks” Joe chuckled. “But I do have something for you.”

He fished around in his backpack for a few seconds, and retrieved a rem pod, and pushed it into Phil’s hands.

“Just to be on the safe side,” he explained and held his hands up in surrender as Phil shot him a questioning look, “Put it on your bedside table and see if anything comes up. Put a recorder beside it.”

Phil resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It was times like these when it occurred to him just how similar the Sugg siblings really were, at heart.

“Okay,” was what he settled for, and Joe smiled, and patted him on the shoulder as he passed him, on the way to his own room.

Phil tossed the rem pod in his hands for a few seconds, looking down at the device, before letting himself into his own room, and flicking on the light.

He was quite relieved to see that everything was exactly how he left it, and walked over to the bag of equipment in the corner of the room, retrieved a recorder and placed it beside the rem pod on his bedside table, hastily switching both devices on, causing them both to momentarily crackle.

“Solo investigation,” Phil explained for the purpose of the recorder, “I’ve been instructed to leave a rem pod and recorder beside me as I sleep.”

Satisfied everything was in working order, he slipped under the thick duvet and pulled it up to his chin, willing himself to fall asleep. As soon as his head hit the pillow, his repressed tiredness caught up to him, but his mind was racing. The mysteries surrounding Harrowick and its lingering residents plagued his mind.

Sleep was his biggest desire yet the most unattainable at the present moment, and he stayed awake thinking of how hilarious certain puns were.

When his eyes batted closed for the final time, Phil was sure it was what pure bliss felt like.

\--

His eyes snapped open a couple of hours later, an obvious reaction to the rem pod beside him going insane, beeping erratically.

Immediately, he reached to switch the device off before it woke up any of the surrounding hotel guests, and checked his phone, the clock reading 4:32a.m.

His fingers reached for the pull-cord of his bedside lamp, but a chill ran down his spine when he considered what he might see if he did. But the recorder was still boasting a red light, and he took advantage of it.

“So it’s half past four in the morning,” Phil began, his throat running dry due to his nerves, “And I’ve just been woken up by the rem pod going insane. I’m going to switch on the lamp to see if anything has appeared.” It felt quite silly in a way, to be narrating every thought and every move he was making, but a secondary purpose was to warn off any spirits. Or at least he hoped.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he pulled on the lamp cord, plunging the room into soft white light, and Phil dove his arms back under the duvet and pulled it up to his chin, still not daring to open his eyes. He rested his head in the fabric and silently counted to ten, then dared to raise his head and open his eyes.

His heart was practically in his mouth when he saw a man sitting at the end of his bed, cross-legged, transparent and with a beaming smile.

The man from his dream.

Dan Howell.


	7. Seven.

Phil felt paralysed, the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, and his nerves were all on edge. Though he couldn’t help but feel slightly thrilled, he just _knew_ there was something more to that dream than his friends (excluding Zoe) refused to acknowledge.

All he could do was stare at the transparent man in front of him, and wonder if he was really awake at all.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost” Dan smirked, tilting his head to one side.

Though he was obviously transparent, Phil could easily make out his facial features. Dan’s voice wasn’t how he expected, either, since in the dream he was silent.

“C-Can you blame me?” Phil replied, voice wavering. He still wasn’t entirely sure if he was talking to his own imagination.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, pal” Dan shrugged, leaning back on his hands, though his hands hovered a couple of centimetres from the bedspread.

Phil couldn’t think properly. He was having a conversation with a ghost, and not through a spirit box or any form of equipment. Face to face. He’d seen full body apparitions before, sure, they all had, but never anything beyond shadows and black figures. A part of him wanted to run out of the room and dash over to one of his friends’ rooms, but a bigger part of him was determined to see this through, it very well may be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

But at least if Dan _was_ attached to him, he didn’t seem to be a negative entity, just as he thought.

He glanced over to the EVP recorder, and took a deep breath when he saw the bright red light was still prominent. He was going to do this. He pinched himself under the duvet, and when he winced at the pain, a shiver of excitement ran through him. His emotions were constantly changing.

“Y-You’re dead…”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Well done, genius. What gave it away?” he gestured to his body.

“How is this happening?” Phil asked, trying his hardest to be persistent.

“I can be like this for like, four hours every day, if I want to,” Dan explained, referencing his manifestation, his eyes locked onto Phil’s.

“Is that a thing that goes for all spirits?”

Dan shrugged. “Hard to say. I think it’s something to do with how much residual energy we have or some shit like that. I’ve heard your friends say something like it before.”

Phil hoped that the recorder was picking up Dan’s side of the conversation too, that it was in the same sound wave, but in real time, it sounded just as if Phil was speaking to one of his friends. He’d never heard of anything like this ever happening before.

Instead of skirting around the elephant in the room, Phil couldn’t avoid it anymore.

“Why are you here?”

He swallowed back a lump in his throat as his eyes remained focused on the man (was he strictly a man? A spirit? A ghost?) in front of him.

“You’re nice,” Dan stated, his voice significantly quieter and smaller than it was previously and his eyes darted downwards, a frown tugging on his lips. “I’ve not had anyone be nice to me in a long time.”

“As in before you died?”

“Sure, back then, I know that Liguori’s great great grandson was telling you about that. He was a good guy, looked after me as much as he could” Dan sounded almost wistful. “But also there have been some kids and wannabes break in since the place was abandoned, always taunting us all. For some reason they always seemed interested in trying to provoke me in particular…” he frowned and dipped his head, and Phil almost wanted to shuffle forward and comfort him.

So Dan was clearly around during the interviews with Dodie and PJ. But Phil struggled to focus on the facts, he mainly felt sympathy for the man in front of him whose heart no longer beat, his life snatched from him for no reason at all.

“I have a question, considering I’ve answered all of yours so far,” Dan slowly raised his head, and Phil nodded for him to continue, “Your friend, the small brunette, kept talking about me and something called an attachment? What’s that?”

Phil pressed his lips together, unsure of how to tackle the question. Though he was sure Dan wasn’t malicious in the slightest – Marzia, an expert, had already confirmed it – if there was even the smallest form of demonic presence in him, if Phil stepped out of line with his answers, it could have drastic consequences.

“Well,” Phil swallowed thickly, “Typically it’s where a spirit takes a liking to someone for whatever reason and attaches themselves to them, and essentially follows them everywhere they go. Usually it’s a negative entity, and it plagues the person’s life. Sometimes it takes an exorcism to get it to leave.”

Dan recoiled, and cupped a hand over his mouth. “That’s what she thinks I’m going to do?” his voice was muffled (bizarrely, Phil didn’t understand how), but he sounded genuinely horrified.

“We’ve all been investigating for a long time now, all four of us have had nasty demonic things happen to us” Phil explained, finding the confidence to move his arms and let the duvet drop, pooling on his lap.

Dan watched it fall.

“Nothing’s ever going to hurt you again. I can kick some ass, I’ll tell you that” he held up his small fists, and pretended to fight an invisible enemy. Which was ironic, the more Phil thought about it.

“To me it kind of seemed as if you were the one getting your ass kicked” Phil’s eyes widened as soon as he said it, a split second later praying to every religious icon that it wouldn’t be taken the wrong way.

Dan dropped his fists and blinked at Phil a few times, and it felt like an eternity to Phil before Dan did something else. Of all things, he laughed.

“Touché.”

“Can I ask why you chose to manifest yourself for the first time whilst I was sleeping?” Phil blurted out what was now on his mind, and Dan covered his face with his hands and flopped forward, his head slipping through the duvet slightly, which reminded Phil just how insane and never-been-witnessed-before the experience was.

“It’s not my first time” Dan mumbled, so quietly that Phil would have missed it if he weren’t concentrating.

“You mean you watched me sleep more than once?” he asked for clarification, suddenly feeling very exposed. He was also extremely thankful that Joe forced him to sleep beside a rem pod, otherwise Phil dreaded to think how long Dan would have stuck around in silence.

“I was curious!” Dan defended, “Believe it or not, the whole gay thing didn’t go down so well in a testosterone fuelled prison in the late forties. I never got to experiment or dabble!”

Phil felt colour rush to his cheeks. “You can’t just go around watching people as they sleep, that’s fucking creepy! Besides, what makes you think I’m the type to experiment with, you don’t know my preference!”

Dan raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Because I recall a certain conversation from a few hours ago with your blond friend from when you were both looking at those tiny computer screens, which by the way, blew my mind quite a lot. But anyway I recall you saying you are, and I quote,” he held up his fingers to make air quotations marks, “straight as a fucking rainbow.”

Phil let out a groan of embarrassment, taking Dan by surprise slightly, and rubbed his eyes.

“Will you please get out of here? It’s too early to be attacked like this” he waved his hand dismissively, and Dan smirked.

“As you wish. See you around,” he even took the liberty of embarrassing Phil further by blowing a kiss and winking, then in the blink of an eye, he was gone, and Phil was alone in the room once again.

Before his brain had a chance to comprehend what had just happened, he leapt out of bed and over to his bag of equipment, retrieving a mel-meter and impatiently tapped the device as it booted up.

The whole room read a baseline of 0.0, no electromagnetic spikes. Dan was gone, at least for now.

After putting the device back, Phil contemplated what he should do. Part of him wanted to go banging down his friends’ hotel room doors, and scream everything that had happened at them in one long unintelligible babble without stopping for breath, but a bigger part of him wanted to just sleep. He was still exhausted beyond belief, and wanted to savour every minute of sleep he was allowed before Louise made it her mission to wake him up and begin their next afternoon of interviews.

So Phil gave into his desires and slipped back under the duvet, pulling it up to his chin and snuggling into the mattress. His mind was still swimming with a million and one thoughts and theories, but as soon as sleep took a hold of him, he was out like a light.

\--

He was so rudely awoken by continuous banging on his door, and with sleepy eyes and shaky legs courtesy of muscles that hadn’t woken up yet, he opened it to reveal Louise, fully made-up and ready for the day.

“You seem different,” she said immediately, taking Phil by surprise. But he supposed if anyone would notice anything different about him, it would be Louise, they’d been best friends years before they both joined the paranormal investigator profession. “What happened?”

Phil walked back over to the bed and sat at the edge, exactly where Dan had been.

“I don’t know what you mean” he yawned and rubbed his eyes, deciding it was best not to tell her just yet. She’d say he’d been dreaming.

“Your recorder burnt out,” she observed, walking over to the bedside table and picking up the device that Phil had forgotten to switch off. “Do you think you got anything?”

Phil shrugged. “I hope so.”

He wasn’t lying. If Dan’s voice wasn’t picked up, when Caspar and Alfie came to analyse the footage it would just be Phil having a weird conversation with himself in the early hours of the morning.

“Take it to Caspar to change the battery whilst we’re out doing more interviews” she suggested, tossing the device into Phil’s lap. “Are you sure nothing happened? You seem more upbeat and have that glint in your eye.”

When Phil stayed silent, as lying to his best friend was never something he enjoyed doing, Louise continued staring him down, and Phil had to look away.

“You made contact with Dan, didn’t you” she said gently as she sat back down beside him, and Phil nodded meekly. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, pulling him in for a one-arm hug. “What kind of contact? Audio? Visual? Did you capture it?”

“How about all of the above…” Phil mumbled, and Louise gasped.

“Shut _up,”_ she was clearly more excited than before, “What did he look like? Was he actually the guy in your dream?”

Phil merely nodded, not really knowing how to put into words anything that he’d witnessed.

“We need to tell Joe and Zoe!” she jumped up and tugged on Phil’s arm, but Phil didn’t move.

“It doesn’t change anything, they don’t want me to step back into the penitentiary…” he reminded the blonde, and she pressed her lips together.

“But this could change everything!” she was persistent, Phil admired it about her.

“Lou, I can’t be certain any of it happened, I was exhausted…”

“Then let’s go get Caspar to analyse it right this second!” she let go of his arm and grabbed the recorder and ran out of the door, leaving Phil to trail after her, not knowing how to feel.

“Don’t wreck my room whilst I’m gone” Phil mumbled to his empty room, just in case Dan was for some reason still lurking.

Louise was nowhere to be seen in the corridor, but Caspar’s hotel room door was wide open.

“Can you at least knock in the future?” Caspar muttered to Louise as Phil entered the room. His friend was in only his boxers, carrying a pair of tracksuit bottoms into the bathroom. Clearly he had been intruded upon.

Louise was blushing deeply, a hand cupped over her mouth.

“What kind of party did I just walk into?” Phil asked jokingly, and Louise just shook her head.

“One I wouldn’t say no to attending again, I’ll tell you that for nothing” her voice was significantly lower than before.

Phil raised an eyebrow at her, and she squirmed under his gaze, then occupied herself by scurrying over to the various monitors, looking over each one with a little too hard of a focus.

Though Phil couldn’t help but agree with her.

“Ain’t that the truth” he said under his breath as he walked over beside her, but Louise heard, and she smiled at him.

“Alright, Casanova, stop trying to take all the boys from me before I have a chance” she winked.

“You know the saying, my loves, don’t mix business with pleasure” Caspar announced as he emerged from the bathroom (fully clothed now) and walked over to the two, swinging his arms around both of their shoulders.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Cas” Phil smirked, and Caspar pouted.

“That hurts, Lester. But five beers down you, and I could have you if I wanted you” he stated, and Phil felt himself blush. He wished he wasn’t so easy to read. He also wished he wasn’t such a lightweight. “But what can I do you for?”

Louise handed over the recorder.

“Phil thinks he might have made contact last night.”

Caspar turned to face Phil.

“Really?”

Phil didn’t respond, and Caspar grinned, eagerly plugging in the recorder to his laptop, the software popping up immediately.

“This is from your hotel room?” he asked, and Phil nodded, still not really knowing what to say.

He watched as the various sound frequencies from the recorder popped up onto the software, and his breath hitched in his throat when he saw the lower sound frequencies directly after he asked a question in real time. Just like he remembered his and Dan’s conversation.

“Okay this is going to take a while, it’s been running for literal hours,” Caspar explained as he fished out his earphones from the desk drawer, “So find a way to keep yourselves occupied in the meantime.”

And then Caspar was practically dead to the world, he would be until he’d finished analysing. Phil cringed at his choice of wording in his mind, considering Caspar was analysing Phil’s potential conversation with an actual ghost, an actual dead person. An actual dead person who very well may have an attachment.

“As if on cue,” Louise mused, holding out her phone to Phil, displaying a text in the group chat from Zoe asking where everyone else was, as they had to leave for the next round of interviews.

“You go stall her whilst I quickly get ready” Phil pleaded, and Louise shrugged, agreeing.

They bid their temporary goodbyes to Caspar and went their separate ways. Phil felt slightly apprehensive about entering his own room again, yet he wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see his room different to how he left it.

It wasn’t wrecked, it wasn’t messy at all, it was tidier.

The shoes that were previously strewn about the room were placed neatly in a row at the end of the bed, and the mismatch of equipment he had around the room was all piled on the coffee table at the far end of the room. Even his toiletries were organised around the bathroom sink.

“Wow, a creep who watches me sleep and a neat freak, I really lucked out with you didn’t I” Phil rolled his eyes as he slipped on his old faithful shoes, and felt something hit him gently in the back of the head whilst his back was turned.

A ball of paper now rested just behind him, no apparent place of origin. No paper was even in the room, not even a complementary notebook from the hotel.

“Real mature,” Phil gently scolded, and the bedside lamp flickered, a silent rebuttal.

“If I asked you to not leave this room with me, would you listen? Make the lamp flicker once for yes, twice for no.”

The lamp flickered twice in rapid succession. Phil couldn’t fight the small smile that tugged in the corner of his lips.

“Somehow I thought that’s what you’d say” he spoke to the ghost as he closed the door behind him and headed off into the direction of the lobby.

\--

“Where have you been?” Zoe asked impatiently, tapping her foot. She had always been paranoid about timings, for as long as Phil had known her.

“Had to make myself look beautiful, didn’t I?” Phil patted his face, and Zoe cracked a smile, putting Phil more at ease.

“You’re a funny one,” she poked him gently in the chest, then diverted her attention back to her phone, presumably trying to get a hold of her brother, who was still absent. “How are you feeling today, by the way? Any more contact with anything?” she asked absentmindedly.

Phil shot a quick look to Louise, who held up her hands and mouthed ‘I didn’t say anything’.

“Hard to say, Caspar’s on it as we speak.”

Zoe slipped her phone back into her coat pocket and turned to face Phil, looking up at him with an intrigued expression.

“On what? What happened?”

 Phil took a deep breath. “Well, I think I might have-“

“Sorry I’m late!” Joe shouted to the group, as he walked over to meet them from the lifts.

His hair was dishevelled and it didn’t look as if he’d slept a wink.

“What the fuck happened to you, you look like shit” Louise observed, and Joe gave her a sarcastic smile.

“Stayed up all night researching Adam Millington, seeing what I could dig up that could help us” he replied. “Found some juicy stuff, too.”

“We’ll talk about it in the car.” Zoe sounded firm, and practically pushed everyone out of the door, barely giving Phil and Louise enough time to pick up their cameras.

\--

“So what did you find out?” Zoe asked her brother once they were on their way back to the diner for the second round of interviews.

“Some standard stuff that wasn’t that interesting, but there was one thing that really excited me,” he paused, Phil assumed to build tension.

“Don’t keep us in suspense” Louise flicked him on the back of his head.

“Well remember how yesterday Dodie told us her great great grandma was his girlfriend?”

“Like it’s engraved into my mind with the most intricate of stationery” Louise continued to mock Joe’s attempts at building tension.

“Well,” Joe seemed unfazed, “Turns out they had a kid, was born whilst he was locked away, he died before ever getting to see it.”

“It?” Zoe repeated disapprovingly.

“Whatever. Her.” Joe elaborated, his tone flippant.

“That’s got to be rough, even for a dick like him” Phil commented, and Joe shook his head.

“Nothing’s too rough for a lowlife like him, Phil. You’re too soft on people.”

The sad thing is that Phil knew Joe was right with that last part. The cold breeze that then surrounded him made Phil believe a certain spirit also agreed with Joe.

\--

The group returned in low spirits, the interviews were all pointless. All from townsfolk speculating about events that happened at the penitentiary, but not having any solid proof nor any connections to anyone that was imprisoned. Dodie and PJ were still their main sources of insight.

“Absolutely fucking waste of time,” Joe exhaled angrily as they all made their way up to Caspar’s hotel room to plan for the night’s investigation.

Whilst Zoe and Joe were quietly bickering and storming on ahead, Louise gently pulled Phil to one side, taking him by surprise.

“You realise that your involuntary rendezvous is going to be exposed now, right?” she asked, leaning against the wall.

“That makes it sound a lot worse than it was, Lou” Phil replied, though his mind was solely filled with worry because Louise was right, Zoe and Joe were going to ask Caspar and Alfie if they had found any evidence to report back on, and since he hadn’t swore Caspar to secrecy not to tell, his meeting with Dan would be common knowledge before he had a chance to figure anything out about it.

“Didn’t he say he’s watched you sleep more than once?” Louise cocked an eyebrow in amusement, and Phil sighed.

“I really regret choosing to tell you of all people.”

“Listen, I’m not here to judge,” she held up her hands, “The kid might’ve been deprived, didn’t get his kicks before he passed. I’m not kinkshaming.”

In response, Phil rolled his eyes and turned around, heading for Caspar’s room, hearing Louise’s bellowing laughter behind him as she followed.

Phil felt as if he was walking on eggshells as he joined the rest of his colleagues. Alfie was laid on the bed on his laptop, analysing the camera footage from the previous night, and Zoe, Joe and Caspar were all huddled around the monitors, watching something that Phil couldn’t see from where he was stood.

“What have we found, my friends?” Louise called out as she walked into the room, playfully nudging Phil’s arm as she passed him, intentionally bringing attention to their arrival.

Immediately, Joe and Zoe walked over, and both crossed their arms, expressions firm.

“What the fuck happened to you last night?” Joe asked, prodding his finger into Phil’s chest.

Phil felt like a rabbit caught in headlights, and Caspar shot him an apologetic glance.

When Phil didn’t reply, Zoe sighed exasperatedly.

“You’re just talking to yourself for at least forty minutes… care to explain?”

No words came to his mind, his throat ran dry.

“Actually, there were one or two responses…” Caspar informed quietly, unplugging his earphones, ready to prove himself.

“Seriously?” Louise spoke up, getting up from the chair in the corner and going over to Caspar.

“Yeah, I mean, for the most part it does seem as if you’re talking to yourself,” the blond was speaking to Phil, “But there are a couple of very faint whispers? It doesn’t sound as if you heard them that way, though…”

“Play them” Joe instructed, turning back around and sitting on the edge of the bed.

Phil stayed near the doorway, as did Zoe, but everyone (except Alfie) turned their attention to attempting to hear what Caspar was playing.

It did seem as if Phil was talking to himself. Caspar had to amplify the volume more than ever before just to be able to hear Dan’s extremely faint whisper, even though at the time, it was as if Phil were having a conversation with a living person.

Joe and Zoe remained tight-lipped as the audio played, and after it finished, they simply looked to one another and nodded.

“I’m going in alone tonight.” Joe announced, voice monotone. “To make contact with Adam Millington, get to the bottom of that prick’s desire to plague us.”

When nobody argued nor protested, the youngest Sugg sibling got up and left the room in silence.

Zoe then placed her hand on Phil’s shoulder, capturing his attention.

“Phil, we can hold down the fort tonight in base. You stay here and catch up on sleep, yeah?” she smiled sympathetically, clearly thinking he was going insane. He knew he’d captured hard evidence and intelligent responses, they just weren’t coming through for Caspar when he came to analyse them.

“Zoe, I know what I captured…” Phil’s voice was weak, he wasn’t even sure if he fully believed himself. The expert technology was more accurate than he could ever dream to be, after all.

Zoe pulled him into a tight bear hug.

When they pulled apart, she ruffled his hair slightly. Phil couldn’t help but notice the bags under her eyes, and he wondered just how much Harrowick Penitentiary was having an effect on his friends as well as himself. It wasn’t something they ever willingly spoke about on past investigations.

“Just get some sleep, we’ll decide what to do in the morning.”

Zoe then left the room, and Louise followed, promising to call Phil when they were on their way back, if he was still awake she would visit to tell him everything he’d missed.

Phil followed his friends down to the lobby, helped them pack all of the equipment into the car and watched them drive away, without him. He couldn’t help but feel isolated, like a kid that got kicked out of his group of friends on the playground.


	8. Eight.

His hotel room had rarely felt emptier, though it was only him that ever inhabited it.

He flopped down on his bed, buried his head into the pillow and gripped some of the duvet in his fists, hoping to release some of the stress he didn’t realise he was holding.

“Um, are you okay?”

What shocked Phil was how little he reacted to the question. Never mind _who_ asked the question.

“You’ve made me look like I’m fucking insane.” He mumbled in response, and he felt a cold breeze apparate around his balled fist.

“I’m sorry,” the spirit answered, his voice louder and obviously closer than before, “I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry.”

Phil lifted his head slightly then dropped back onto the pillow, this time he was leaning on his side.

He was mere centimetres from Dan’s transparent face. But he wasn’t scared.

“Your voice didn’t show up on the recorder from earlier,” Phil explained, “So it sounded like I was talking to myself the whole time, now my friends think I’m insane and I’ll probably get fired.”

Dan grimaced.

“Because of me?”

Phil made eye contact, and held Dan’s stare for a few seconds.

“If you want me to be blunt about it” Phil found it in himself to smile a little.

Dan fell back from his crouched (Phil presumed ‘hovered’ would be a better term) position and sat against (or just in front of, he would’ve gone through it) the dresser.

“Nice people don’t deserve horrible things.”

He didn’t even care that he didn’t have an EVP recorder this time. It wouldn’t make a difference.

“Yet they’re the people that attract disaster” Phil mused, and Dan pressed his lips together.

“You don’t deserve to be fired or to be sad in general,” Dan said decisively, his gaze fixed somewhere in the distance. “Probably sounds pathetic to admit but you’re the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

“You don’t even know me, Dan” Phil reminded him, willing himself not to blush even though he’d just been complimented by a literal ghost.

“Let’s agree to disagree. I’ve been… observing you for a couple of days now.”

“I hope that just sounds creepy and the reality isn’t…”

Dan cracked a smile.

“Why do you think I spoke into that little box of yours literally minutes after you came in the penitentiary for the first time? You gave off good vibes, something I’ve never really experienced from anyone before.”

“Didn’t you say the only people you’d seen since dying were people that broke in and taunted you?” Phil asked in amusement, and Dan rolled his eyes. It was awe-inspiring to see a transparent person roll their eyes.

“Just accept the damn compliment, Phil” Dan whined.

“I’m still pissed at you for making me look like I’m losing my mind. Couldn’t you manipulate the recorder so it picked up your voice?” Phil asked out of curiosity, and Dan shrugged.

“I have no idea how that thing works, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.” He admitted, “Or afterlife.” He added, almost as a wistful afterthought.

“Well yes I couldn’t imagine they had EVP recorders in the forties” Phil teased.

“Enough of the sass, you” Dan wiggled a spindly finger in Phil’s direction, “But my point is I don’t know how to make myself heard or not heard. You can hear me, though, is that not enough?” he cocked his head to the side.

“Evidently not,” Phil chuckled bitterly, “I don’t even think Louise believes me anymore.”

“Ah Louise, the sweet blonde, yes?” Dan’s question was rhetorical. “She made quite the accurate observation about me. I definitely didn’t ‘get my kicks’ before I passed.” He was even sure to include air quotes around what he’d evidently heard Louise say.

Phil shook his head and smiled. “Of course you heard that.”

“I told you that I wouldn’t stay in the room on my own, you must’ve known I was there” Dan reminded him.

“I thought you might’ve gotten some self-control and not be too clingy” Phil joked.

“Hey, buddy, listen here. If we have what your friend Zoe calls an attachment, it makes sense, don’t lie.”

“An attachment isn’t a good thing!” Phil blurted out, and Dan waved his hand dismissively.

“Whatever.” In the blink of an eye, he was sat opposite Phil on the bed, the quickness of it all made Phil’s heart beat that much faster. “I like spending time with you.”

“Well, I suppose you’re a better way to spend the time than crappy satellite tv all these hotels seem to have.” Phil kept his tone of voice as flippant as possible, and burst into laughter when Dan furrowed his eyebrows.

They spent the next hour or so cracking lame jokes and Phil occasionally asking Dan what it was like being dead (he was surprisingly open about it, a first out of all spirits Phil had ever made contact with in the past) and Dan occasionally asking Phil what it was like living in the present time, and then marvelling at how much the world had changed, as he (understandably) hadn’t left the penitentiary since he died there. The most notable question was when Dan asked if, in Phil’s professional opinion, it was possible for a ghost and human to feel something for each other, stating he was asking for a fellow spirit in the penitentiary who had apparently taken a liking to one of the regular intruders.

“It’s pretty much a fact that the only reason spirits are still here after their death is because they’re tied to earth by something. Usually either by someone or a desire to do something or something is physically stopping them from moving on,” Phil stated what he had been told in his early stages of paranormal investigating, “What’s your thing?”

Dan rested his head on his hand as he was launched deep into thought at Phil’s question.

Phil waited patiently.

“I-I don’t know?” Dan eventually spoke, and sighed. “It’s not like I’ve _wanted_ to be stuck with that prick Adam in the penitentiary all those years, he’s made the afterlife as much of a hell as he did in human life. Though this time there are no guards to stop him doing whatever he wants. It’s a fucking miracle I’ve managed to escape here.” Dan winced at recalling something, Phil didn’t pry.

“Maybe that’s it, you know” Phil suggested helpfully, and Dan met his gaze.

“Maybe what’s what?”

“Maybe Adam’s the reason you can’t move on, he’s still oppressing you. If he was gone, maybe you’d be free.”

Dan pondered that for a second.

“Aren’t we supposed to see a bright light when we die, and that’s what moves us on?” he asked, and Phil nodded. “I’ve never had that. It’s always just been… darkness. Same as when I was alive.”

And that broke Phil’s heart.

“I’m going to see what we can do about this whole thing, maybe we can hire a priest to do a cleansing and banish him out. Yeah, I’m sure that would work!” Phil knew he was being optimistic. A cleansing and intense prayer only abolished spirits approximately 90% of the time. He knew that from experience. From his second ever investigation onwards, to be specific.

Dan remained silent, looking down at his see-through lap.

“Isn’t that you want?” Phil asked, having lost some of his initial confidence.

“Well I don’t know,” Dan’s voice was small, his head still dipped. “If a priest did come in and cleanse the penitentiary, would that banish me too?”

Phil was sure that there were tears pooling in Dan’s eyes, though it was hard to tell for sure, on account of him being a ghost and all. But there was a clear difference to how he was a few seconds prior.

“All it’d do to good spirits like you is show them the light. It wouldn’t hurt you” Phil told him reassuringly.

Dan didn’t respond, his gaze was still focused on his lap. Phil was about to justify the idea further when his phone began to rang, a picture of he and Louise flashed across the screen alongside the answer/decline buttons. The picture always made him smile.

He couldn’t be mad at them anymore.

“Hi, Philly!” Louise’s cheerful voice rang through the speakers, attracting even Dan’s attention for a moment before he returned to his mundane task of looking only downwards.

“How’re things on the daily grind?” Phil greeted with a question he was genuinely curious about. He wanted to know how the investigation was going. With Dan being there with him, he wondered if they had made any contact at all.

“Before we get onto that, have you gotten any sleep?” she asked, clearly concerned. Phil fought back the urge to scoff.

“Yes, mother, I woke up about ten minutes ago.”

At that, Dan’s head snapped up and he tutted disapprovingly, a smirk on his lips.

“Good, once we hang up, go back to sleep. But since you asked, Joe’s just gone back in to do a solo investigation at Adam Millington’s cell. He’s going to let him use his energy to communicate. I think he’s going to provoke him a bit, about his daughter and stuff.”

Phil felt an uncomfortable chill run down his spine. “That sounds like a terrible idea, why are you letting him do that?”

There was a moment of two or silence, and Phil could hear muttering in the background. Louise sounded panicked when she eventually returned.

“Listen, Phil, I-I promise I’ll call you back soon. We need to deal with this _now.”_ she hung up the call, leaving Phil staring at his disconnected phone, wondering what the hell was happening.

A few seconds before, Louise was cheerful and joking, but something happened a split second later and she sounded urgent and panicked. Phil’s mind immediately began to race, and his heartbeat quickened with worry.

“Dan, I-I know this might seem weird but can I ask you something?”

Dan met his gaze and nodded. At noticing Phil’s clear unrest, Dan seemed concerned, gone was his previous attitude.

“Can you please go check on Joe?”

Dan’s eyes widened.

“A-At the penitentiary?”

Phil nodded. “I’m sorry to ask but Joe’s in there on his own and I have no way of getting there and-“

“I’m scared to go back there, Phil, I don’t think you understand what that psycho Millington is capable of…”

“I know, that’s what I’m terrified about, Joe’s gone in there on his own, has opened up to Adam, letting him use his energy, and I’m worried Adam’s manipulated him or, heaven forbid, possessed him. Please Dan, I don’t know what else I can do…”

Phil rested his head in his hands, he was terrified for Joe. From all he had gathered about Adam Millington, he was an unstoppable force of evil. Now he probably had possessed one of Phil’s best friends.

When Phil wiped his eyes of tears he didn’t know had fallen, Dan was staring at him, biting his lip.

“Phil I really don’t know what I could even do-“

“Try reasoning with him, stalling him, anything to get Joe enough time to get the fuck out of there! You know Adam, you know what makes him tick, just please, please do this for me, Dan.”

That, shockingly, seemed to work, as in the blink of an eye Dan was stood at the foot of the bed, his arms wrapped around his torso.

“Please don’t get your hopes up, Phil” Dan spoke softly, his tone of voice practically oozed self-doubt.

“Thank you for doing this” Phil smiled, and wiped away some more tears.

Phil blinked a few times, each time expecting Dan to be gone and doing whatever ghostly things he could do to help (Phil was almost a million percent sure that there was nothing malicious about Dan’s energy at all), but he stayed. Still looking at Phil, still evidently terrified to leave.

Phil pulled his knees up to his chest.

“Hey,” he caught Dan’s attention, “I promise I’ll still be here when you get back.”

Dan smiled, mouthed a thank you, then vanished into thin air. It left Phil to wonder what he’d said that was so convincing, but his fear and concern for his friend by far overpowered any other thoughts he had.

\--

Phil spent the next forty-five minutes frantically switching between calling all four of his friends that were at base. He didn’t attempt to call Joe.

Zoe, Louise, Alfie and Caspar’s phones all went to voicemail, Phil tried each of them at least ten times, and he ran a hand through his hair, left to only ponder and panic over what may or may not be happening to Joe.

Louise never called him back like she said she was going to, and that only worried Phil further. Louise _always_ called back, she had never broken a promise for as long as Phil had known her.

He even tried facetiming them all multiple times, as if they would’ve accepted that over a phone call, of course they didn’t answer.

With every minute that passed that he didn’t hear anything from anyone, Phil felt all the more antsy. It wasn’t impatience as much as it was pure worry and dread, knowing full well what was probably the case at the penitentiary. Adam Millington was the very definition of a negative, harmful spirit, it wouldn’t surprise Phil if he was a demon in the afterlife, he’d heard how Adam was to live with from Dan, who was physically there, living with him at the time, when Adam and his friends used to beat him senseless.

The nearest priest was a lengthy drive away, he didn’t have the car, and Phil felt helpless. He didn’t fully know what was happening, didn’t, in reality, have a clue, but oh he could speculate. He had no choice but to.

The idea hit him all at once, and he dove for his phone.

\--

“So I’ll see you in the morning?” Phil asked for confirmation, and smiled when the arrangement was agreed. “Okay, thank you so much, bye!”

He dropped his phone back onto the bed and flopped back onto his pillow, feeling as if he’d accomplished something. Helped in some tiny, minute way. Given what he presumed had happened to Joe was the reality.

Then came the waiting game. Again. He laid on the bed in silence, the room dropping deadly silent around him, just twiddling his thumbs, waiting for some form of news, some kind of update.

It was kind of weird to him how silent the room was, it was the first time since he arrived in the town where he’d truly felt alone. That alone was a realisation.

It was at least thirteen more minutes of agonisingly long waiting (Phil was watching the time pass on the digital clock on the coffee table) before something happened.

“Phil,” his name was spoken in nothing more than a wheeze.

Immediately at the sound of his name, Phil snapped his head up to be greeted with the return of Dan, though he was not, in any way, the same as when he left.

He was visibly sagging, in posture and body language, and he looked as if all of the metaphorical life had been sucked out of him. He was also coughing quite a lot, which Phil found highly intriguing, he didn’t even know ghosts could cough. He knew they could laugh, he’d captured countless laughs on EVPs, but never real-time coughs, only residual.

But then again, Dan was breaking down all pre-conceptions that Phil had about the paranormal.

“What the fuck happened to you” the words left Phil’s mouth before he had a chance to think of any alternatives, and Dan laughed bitterly.

“I went on your little merry mission back to hell, didn’t I” he reminded Phil, and the human suddenly felt a pang of guilt somewhere in the bottom of his stomach.

“How long do you have left today to manifest?”

Dan momentarily made eye contact with him, and shrugged.

“I’ll let you know when it feels like I’m going into non-existence again, don’t worry, I’ll go straight back to haunting your lamp when the time comes.”

“You’re hilarious. But what happened out there?”

Dan bit his lip and, in the blink of an eye, was sat opposite Phil on the bed.

“You-Your friend is in a bad way, right now, Phil,” he revealed, and Phil felt as if his heart was in his mouth, “Adam’s taken control of him. As soon as I got there, he just turned on me, I don’t know if he could see me or if it was Adam speaking through him but, your friends probably got it on camera…”

Dan squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head as if he were trying to get himself to stop.

“I tried, Phil,” he cried, voice shaky and croaky, “I tried so hard to save him, get Adam to get out of him but, he just laughed at me, like he always did when we were alive.”

“Dan, please just tell me-“

“I’m sorry,” Dan’s voice still sounded as if it was teetering on the edge of breaking, though he had more volume from his wheeze from a few minutes prior, “I’m so sorry I let you down.”

“You didn’t-“

Then Dan was gone. In a split second, vanished. Phil was sure it wasn’t because Dan was unable to manifest anymore, rather it was his own choice.

Phil rose from the bed and retrieved his mel-meter, and began checking the electromagnetic levels around the room. All read a baseline of 0.0.

“Daniel Howell get out here right now,” Phil commanded, but was met with silence.

It frustrated him immensely. He couldn’t deny that it also, in a small way, upset him too.

“Whatever, be like that.” He snapped at the nothingness, hoping Dan could hear, wherever he was, and made his way down into the lobby, not being able to stand being in his room another minute longer with the almost taunting silence. He made sure to slam his hotel room door.

The lobby was empty. Some flickering, dim lights were still on, in case some guests, like Phil’s friends, were out for whatever reason and would be returning later, but nobody else was there, not even a receptionist. Even if Phil didn’t believe in ghosts, the scenario would have frightened him, it was a horror movie’s wet dream. All he needed was a serial killer to break down the wall and chase him around and it would have the whole package.

He made the decision to wait in the lobby in case any of his friends came back, and he could catch them straight away. None of them were answering their phones still, and given what Dan had told him about what had happened, panicking would be the mildest way to describe how Phil was feeling. Also, he was still pissed at how Dan just disappeared on him for no reason. He hadn’t even felt a cold breeze around him since the disappearance.

“I can’t wait to get out of this place” he said to himself, placing his head in his hands.

When the six of them first arrived in the town on the first day of the investigation, Phil never would have guessed he would be so affected. Or have a potential friendship with an actual ghost. The same ghost whose murder was the selling point for the investigation.

It was six in the morning when Phil finally felt something over than dread.

An exhausted looking Zoe and Louise were dragging their feet through the lobby, and Phil had to call them over so they knew he was there.

“Are you going to tell me, or?” Phil knew he was flailing his arms around and was probably shouting at them, but he wanted to know their take on what had happened.

“Alfie and Caspar are watching him tonight. Let’s all get some sleep and we’ll rendezvous in the morning” Zoe said, stifling a yawn before heading for the lifts without another word.

“Lou,” Phil gently grasped Louise’s wrist as she turned to leave too, “Please tell me what’s happened” He pleaded.

Louise sighed and broke free of Phil’s grasp.

“Like Zoe said, we’ll talk about it in the morning.” She looked Phil up and down. “You should get some sleep too.”

She didn’t mention the fact that was why Phil was left behind tonight. Because they all thought he should get sleep. Now they were telling him he needed more.

So now he was apparently insane and untrustworthy. The list just kept growing, apparently.


	9. Nine.

Phil woke up feeling incredibly groggy. A million thoughts were still whizzing around his mind, and he didn’t have any of the answers he was so desperately craving.

His thoughts went to Joe, wondering how his friend was, if he was alright, considering nobody had told Phil anything, still.

It was the second day since they had arrived that they’d eaten breakfast in the hotel. The empty seats of Joe, Caspar and Alfie unnerved Phil. The fact Zoe and Louise had made no attempts to address the elephant in the room only frustrated him.

Sure, Dan had told Phil about what he apparently discovered, so he had that to go off at least, but could Phil really trust a ghost? A ghost that can literally disappear off the face of the earth at will?

“Will someone fucking tell me what’s going on?” he slammed his cutlery down with more force than necessary, and his voice was harsher than he intended.

Both girls stared at him wide-eyed, they knew that Phil only swore if something was really getting to him, he had always been good at bottling up his emotions.

Zoe looked down at the table and began picking at her nails, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

Louise sighed from beside her, and gently placed her fork on top of her plate and crossed her hands.

“We think Joe has been possessed.” She spoke calmly, and Phil felt a chill down his spine.

“By Adam?”

Louise nodded solemnly, and Zoe sniffled.

Phil noticed a darker spot on the tablecloth just below where Zoe’s head was dipped, she had shed at least one tear, and he wondered how many she’d caught in her hands.

“I shouldn’t have let him go in alone, I told him something like this would happen…” Zoe mumbled, clearly feeling more of the responsibility for what happened than she should.

Louise rubbed Zoe’s arm comfortingly. “You weren’t to know, chummy, we can never predict these kind of things.”

Phil remained silent.

“We’ve all had attachments,” Louise momentarily glanced over to Phil, “and negative stuff happen before, they’re the bread and butter of our job. He’ll be fine, as soon as we can get someone in to deal with it.”

Zoe wiped her eyes.

“And when is that ever going to happen? We’re in the middle of nowhere here!” she snapped, but Louise didn’t flinch at all. She knew that Zoe was carrying a heavy burden on behalf of her brother.

“I called Marzia last night,” Phil spoke up, capturing both Zoe and Louise’s attention. “She’s coming in a couple of hours with a friend of hers. A priest.”

Neither of them spoke for a second or two, both just blinked at him, and Phil knew what they were thinking. He also predicted they’d ask the next question that they did.

“What made you do that? It’s not like you were there last night…” Zoe trailed off, her voice cracking at the end of her sentence.

“I had a feeling of what was going on, considering how quickly you ended the call” he nodded towards Louise.

He carefully left out the part about Dan.

“And since nobody called me again I figured things went from bad to worse, so I took initiative and called the only person I could think of that could help us.”

“Good call,” Zoe smiled slightly, “I’ll drive her and the priest down to the penitentiary myself. You two stay here for the day.”

“But-“

“That’s final.” Zoe cut Phil off, and held up a finger to warn him not to interrupt her. “I’m not putting anyone else at risk with this whole thing. Alfie and Caspar are already there so they’ll be able to restrain Joe if… the extreme has to be taken.”

Phil and Louise both cringed, knowing what she meant.

An exorcism.

Despite the four of them collectively having had six attachments (and one previous possession before this one), neither of the four had ever had to have an exorcism, they were always eradicated with a simple routine cleansing ritual or the next step up. Never had it been taken further, the thought genuinely terrified Phil.

“Surely with more of us there, the energy can be spread out more…” Louise suggested, but Zoe shook her head.

“No way in hell. I’ll take your camera just in case we can get anything for the show, but you two are staying here. I’m the lead investigator alongside my brother, and I’m not putting you at risk.”

Louise didn’t say another word, just nodded, and Phil just got up from the table and made the excuse of wanting more food, but in reality he just wanted out of the conversation. He was stuck in the hotel again.

Phil was feeling like he was in his own penitentiary, the four walls of his hotel room.

He had just finished scooping a dollop of scrambled egg onto his plate when the voice spoke up.

“I’m sorry.”

He nearly dropped his plate in shock, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he carried on getting more breakfast.

“Phil, I’m sorry I ignored you last night, okay? But I felt like absolute shit, I didn’t want to make things worse between us by saying something I might have regretted…”

Phil scoffed.

“Can you stop acting like we’re married?” he kept his voice to an aggressive whisper so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself, “You’re a _ghost._ You’re dead. I’m not. This shouldn’t even be possible.”

He was taking his long-term repressed anger out on everyone, apparently.

“But… we’re friends, aren’t we?” Dan sounded so vulnerable it almost made Phil smile and want to hug him, before realising it was physically impossible. And undeserving.

He looked back over to the table, Zoe and Louise had their backs to him speaking quietly, in hushed tones. Louise had her hand on Zoe’s back, so Phil assumed she had broken down again.

“If that’s what you want to call it,” Phil rolled his eyes, “I’d never completely ditch a friend when I needed them, but that’s just me.”

He still hadn’t looked over to where the voice was coming from, he didn’t even know if Dan was visible. He didn’t even know if Zoe and Louise would be able to see him.

He decided to test it.

“I’ve been beating myself up over it all…” Dan sighed, “I just don’t know what I can do…”

Phil looked over, and sure enough, Dan was stood there in all his transparent glory, looking just as worn down and generally sad as before.

Without replying, Phil called out his friends’ names, both girls turned to face him.

“Do you want anything bringing back?” he asked politely, though he studied their expressions closely.

Neither of them showed any sign they could see the ghost stood in plain view behind him.

“No thanks, we’re good” Louise answered for the both of them (Phil could see by Zoe’s bright red cheeks she was crying again), and then they both turned back around.

Curious, Phil turned back around too, and Dan was still stood (he used the word stood as opposed to ‘hover’ just because it made the whole thing seem more normal) in the exact same place, not having moved a muscle. He was now biting his lip.

“So now you’re just blanking me?” he asked, and Phil didn’t answer, just continued getting his food.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Phil hissed, before turning on his heel and walking back over to join his friends, placing his plate in front of him, full of food he felt too sick to even attempt to eat.

“Phil,” Zoe spoke up, her voice thick and croaky with emotion, “Since we’re getting a priest, I want him to perform a cleansing to rid you of that attachment. Malicious or not, Dan needs to go.”

Phil didn’t have the heart to argue.

\--

Zoe shooed Phil and Louise to their rooms before Marzia and the priest arrived at the hotel, insisting that she wanted to get them to see Joe as soon as possible, and reuniting with Phil and Louise would only cost them time.

Phil didn’t argue.

Louise still seemed as if she had the life sucked out of her, and promised she’d call by Phil’s room later after she’d gotten a few more hours’ sleep.

Phil wished he could do the same.

He was beginning to feel trapped in the tiny room. He’d counted every swirl on the ceiling, memorised the embroidery pattern on the duvet. He was a paranormal investigator, hired to find evidence of the paranormal and hopefully help some trapped spirits move on, he was even on an extremely exciting investigation, but he hadn’t been allowed to set foot in the place he was supposed to be investigating for nearly two days, for reasons he couldn’t help.

“I heard what Zoe said.”

Phil wondered if Dan ever wasn’t watching or listening.

“And I told you, a cleansing would only show you the light, it wouldn’t hurt you. That way you wouldn’t feel the need to constantly be with me, either.”

There was a lengthy silence, and many times Phil wanted to open his eyes and look to where the voice originated from, to see if Dan was still there, but instead he kept his eyes firmly shut, and listened to the sound of his steady breaths.

“I don’t want to leave you…”

Phil sat up and looked over to the other side of the room, where Dan was stood, his arms wrapped around himself.

“I’m not better than what you’ll find at the other side of the light, Dan.”

Phil heard his own voice become softer.

He never had been able to hold a grudge.

“But you won’t be there anymore, we wouldn’t be able to have our late night chats where you tell me about what a hell the modern world is…”

“And you wouldn’t be able to watch me sleep anymore” Phil found it in himself to crack a joke.

“Trust me, I’d always find a way to do _that”_ Dan replied.

“That’s never not going to be creepy” Phil reminded him, and Dan smiled.

“How’s your friend” he quickly changed the subject, Phil noticed, from the topic of him passing on.

“You have as much of an idea as I do,” Phil sighed, and rubbed his hands over his face, a sad attempt to relieve some stress. Naturally it failed.

Dan fidgeted awkwardly, intriguing Phil.

“What do you know, ghost boy?” he asked, deadly serious despite the teasing nickname,

“I kind of have a connection to the penitentiary, I guess you could call it? I don’t know, I can just feel that he’s still there. It’s like a dark cloud. I know it sounds stupid.”

Phil shook his head. “Not at all, it’s not exactly illogical. Most spirits that don’t pass on straight away are, like I said before, tied to earth for a reason. Some are bound to the places they died in, usually suicides, but it wouldn’t be crazy for you to feel what the other spirits in the penitentiary feel.”

\--

Dan watched Phil pace for a while.

“You’re really understanding, you know that?”

Phil paused to face him.

“I don’t know anyone in the history of paranormal investigating that’s ever had an experience like this,” he gestured between the two of them, “You know that?”

“I’m happy to be a world exclusive for you.”

Dan watched on as Phil continued to pace, his face visibly tired and deeply concerned. Eventually, he went to sit on the edge of the bed, and placed his head in his hands. Dan didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t potentially make things worse.

Silence filled the room. It was weird for there to be silence between them, it usually only happened when Dan wasn’t visible.

He was still racking his hazy brain for what to say, when Phil broke the silence, voice steady yet sincere.

“I’m sorry nobody ever visited you.”

The fact Phil sounded so genuine and that he said it out of the blue gave Dan yet another reason to wish he was alive.

“It’s-it’s not your fault” Dan’s voice was reduced to a whisper, Phil noted it sounded just like Dan’s voice did on the recorder playback that the rest of the group listened to.

“I felt how you felt, when I was in your cell for the first time. I don’t know if it was residual or if you were making me feel it, but I felt the sadness. It’s on camera and probably going to be in the edit. You don’t deserve to have felt like that.”

Phil lifted his head and they shared a small smile.

“And for what it’s worth, I would have visited you.”

They both knew it wasn’t anything much in reality, but it still felt like the world to Dan. He wished he had lived in a more accepting society, he might have lived longer. And had friends, companionship.

“Thank you” he made his way over to sit (Phil still refused to use ‘hover’) next to Phil on the bed.

The thought of where he stood with Phil had plagued his mind for a day or two.

“Can I ask something?”

Phil simply nodded, his gaze still fixed blankly on something at the other end of the room.

“Would you say we’re… friends?”

Phil cracked a smile.

“I don’t know why there was that awkward pause before you said friends,” he chuckled, “But yes, it’s safe to say you have a human friend and I have a ghost friend. Never thought I’d say those words in my lifetime.” Though Phil knew deep down it was true, he felt that saying the words Dan wanted to hear would maybe convince him to move towards the light when the time came.

“I’ve never had a friend before. Alive or dead, nobody ever really cared. You know why.”

Phil bit his lip.

“People just don’t like to scratch below the surface. Believe me, I know it all too well,” he sighed, and Dan knew that deep down, Phil was just as lonely as he was. “If you were only born sixty-odd years later, huh?”

“Yeah,” Dan replied quietly, diverting his gaze down to the carpet and feeling a strange pang in his non-functional stomach, “If only.”

\--

“How are things?” Louise asked. She and Phil were on facetime to a frantic Zoe, who was informing them on what was happening back at the penitentiary.

“We’re leaving three days early, as soon as Joe’s fixed.” She announced bluntly. The whole thing was clearly taking a toll on her.

“Is fixed really the word?” Phil asked unhelpfully, and Zoe pressed her lips together.

“Honestly by this point, I don’t even care. I can’t wait to get out of this town.”

“Has anything worked?”

“Hard to tell, he’s not showed any signs of improving yet. He still keeps thrashing about every so often and saying awful things. But I want you two to come down here as soon as you can,” she requested, trying hard to stay polite when she was evidently beyond stressed.

“I thought you wanted us to stay here?” Louise asked, and Zoe ran a hand through her hair.

“I did, but Alfie and Caspar need to go back to the hotel to shower and sleep and stuff, and I can’t be here with Joe on my own. Do you think you could come down?”

\--

Phil couldn’t describe the feeling in his stomach as he and Louise drove down to the penitentiary. Alfie and Caspar looked beyond exhausted when they crossed paths to pass over the keys to the building, and Caspar had a long scratch down his arm, that had clearly bled. Alfie had a dark bruise on his cheek.

When Louise and Phil asked about their injuries, they both gave the same monotonous response: Joe.

“Do you know what to expect? Like at all?” Phil asked quietly, and Louise tightened her grip on the steering wheel.

“I’m fucking terrified, that’s all _I_ know. The only possessions we’ve had to deal with before are playful child spirits and a very mildly negative one, I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Her voice was surprisingly calm despite the words she was saying.

They spent the rest of the ride in silence, and Phil’s breath hitched in his throat when they parked in front of the building.

The lights were on (Phil was thankful) and the tension was palpable even from outside.

“Prepare yourself for whatever we might find in there” Louise instructed, her focus solely on the building.

“I think that’s pretty much the motto for our job” Phil joked, but Louise only half-smiled.

They both took a deep breath, and got out of the car together, neither of them reaching for their cameras that were perched on the back seat.

“I don’t know why the priest is insistent of doing the extreme cleansing (they collectively felt as if ‘exorcism’ was too strong of a term, the spirit was strong and negative, maybe mildly demonic, but not enough to class as an exorcism) in Millington’s cell, surely that’s the worst place” Phil complained as he and Louise made their way to meet up with Zoe.

“There must be logic in his madness” Louise replied, before they picked up their paces upon hearing a not-so-distant shout of protest.

\--

“Thank you for coming” Zoe greeted them, wrapping an arm around both and lightly hugging them, “But do none of you have your cameras?”

Louise pressed her lips together. “But we thought-“

“That’s the network’s decision to make,” Zoe interrupted, “Because we’re leaving early we need as much footage as we can get.”

Louise only nodded, then turned around in pursuit of the warden’s office where their backup equipment was stored for the investigation.

“Sorry to throw you in at the deep end Phil but, can you help me restrain Joe whilst the priest does another prayer?”

Caspar’s scratch and Alfie’s bruise flashed into Phil’s mind for a second, but he took another deep breath and nodded, then followed Zoe into the small cell, where Joe was sat on the floor, head dipped. He was heavily breathing.

Marzia and the priest were stood outside, and once Zoe had informed them of what was happening, they left to regroup with Louise to run through what should and shouldn’t be filmed. Apparently Adam’s spirit could take energy from the cameras, thus making him stronger, which clearly isn’t ideal when they were trying to (essentially) exorcise him.

“How are you doing, buddy?” Phil asked softly as he kneeled down beside Joe and gently took hold of his arm, whilst Zoe took hold of the other.

There was no response for a while, and Zoe breathed out shakily, knowing that it was not in her brother’s nature to outwardly ignore anyone, they were both the most charismatic and sociable of people.

It was around a minute later when a deep chuckle came from beside him, the sound sent a chill down Phil’s spine.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to come onto you yet” a voice that was not Joe’s stated, and the reality of what was happening to Joe set in all of a sudden, there was no doubt. His eyes were darker, and the way he was handling himself was the complete opposite to normal.

“What?” Zoe asked, tightening her fingers around his arm.

“Still as much of a fucking disgrace as you were back then, I see.” Joe lifted his head to look at the doorway, focusing on something.

Phil and Zoe followed his line of gaze, and Zoe gasped.

“What the fuck is happening…” her voice broke at the end of her sentence, her eyes locked onto Dan, who looked terrified in the doorway.

Phil guessed that because Dan was back in the penitentiary, he had enough energy to manifest again. It made sense, being back where he died. There was enough residual energy to last an undead lifetime, Phil would wager.

“It’s okay, Zo” Phil said softly, trying to comfort his friend. He almost felt safer with Dan around.

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” Dan apologised, his voice just as loud and clear as it had been every time he was alone with Phil. “I just thought I might be able to help…”

“How have you ever been able to help anything?” Joe snapped, Adam was clearly speaking through him.

“Shut up” Zoe scolded harshly, then shifted her attention back to Dan. “What were you thinking?”

Dan pressed his lips together and shifted his non-existent weight from one foot to another.

“I-I was hoping you’d have the answer to that, being the experts and all? But I’ll sacrifice myself if it means it’ll save Joe.”

Phil turned to Zoe, and saw a tear had fallen from her eye.

“It’s happened before,” she told him, “in the nineties a woman was possessed by a demon after messing with a Ouija board, and her dead husband sacrificed himself to save her, the exorcism was long and tiresome but it worked. The positive energy seemed to counteract it, along with the prayers.”

“Is that the Carstons’ case?” Phil asked, and Zoe nodded.

“Remains one of the biggest stories in paranormal history,” she elaborated, “But are you sure you’re willing to do that?” she was straight-faced as she asked the question.

Phil then realised that Zoe had barely reacted to the fact she was speaking to a full-bodied ghost, and how they had stumbled upon a marvel in their field of work. But she was holding onto the arm of her brother who was possessed, so he guessed it made sense. His mind would be in the same place too.

Dan hesitated for a second or two, and his gaze settled on Phil. Phil looked back at him, unsure of what to do.

“Yeah, I-“ Dan dipped his head, “I’m sure.”

“Whatever you’re still on earth for, you’re never going to get to achieve that…” Zoe, ever the considerate one, wanted to make sure it was what he wanted. Even if it meant her brother potentially staying possessed.

“I never achieved anything whilst I was alive so what’s the difference now? I’m just pointless.”

“No arguments here” Joe (Adam) snickered.

“Shut up” Phil scolded him this time.

Dan was visibly shaking, even as a transparent being, and much like a few days prior, Phil wanted to hug him.

Instead he tightened his grip on Joe’s arm.

“Best run, Danny,” Joe’s voice was even deeper and was creepy even to trained paranormal investigators Zoe and Phil, “Playtime’s coming soon.”

“You- You can’t hold that over me anymore.” Dan replied, clearly putting on a brave front. He balled his hands into fists.

“Trying to act brave for your boyfriend here?” Joe (Adam) laughed bitterly and nodded towards Phil. “You don’t have a cat in hell’s chance, nobody’s ever going to lower their standards enough for you, living or dead.”

“Don’t let him provoke you” Zoe warned.

“If he provokes you it’ll weaken you and your energy” Phil added, and Dan squeezed his eyes shut.

“I’m sorry” he whispered before disappearing into thin air.

“Wait!” Zoe shouted, “Come back!” she sounded frustrated, and Phil didn’t know who to feel most sorry for.

It was then that Louise, Marzia and the priest returned.

Marzia stood frozen in place for a couple of seconds and squeezed her eyes shut, Phil watched her.

She then calmly moved a few steps forward and took Phil’s place holding Joe’s arm.

“Go,” she smiled softly, “He needs you.”

“But I can’t do-“

“Phil,” Zoe interrupted him, tears slipping down her cheeks and voice croaky, “Please. Please go get him.”

And so he did. It was bizarre, in a way, being back in the penitentiary after a short while being apart from it. Naturally, a large part of him wished that Harrowick turned out to be just a mundane investigation, a couple of class-B EVPs and a dashing shadow to keep up ratings, and his friend wouldn’t be possessed. But a sizeable part of him was thankful, thankful for meeting Dan, the lonely ghost who didn’t really know how to be a ghost, who had changed the way Phil saw a lot of the paranormal. He never thought that people could form friendships with those in the afterlife, never thought that anyone in the afterlife could be genuinely friendly and harmless with no hidden agenda. Not every spirit was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, some were just misunderstood beings, life taken from them before their time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> are you ready.
> 
> (hint: you're not)


	10. Ten. (Finale)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you start reading the chapter I just want to warn you that there are mentions of blood, death and sentences of a satanic nature, and there is a fair bit of angst throughout this part. Just be aware and stay safe :)
> 
> Also, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

\--

Phil had no idea where he was going, it wasn’t as if he was chasing someone who had simply ran off. He was attempting to trace a ghost that disappeared into thin air with no hint of where he went.

With not having been in the penitentiary anywhere near as much as the others, Phil also got lost easily. He ran out of breath in a random corridor, and leaned against the wall, breathing erratically. He couldn’t keep up a wild goose chase.

“Dan, I know you’re here with me” his voice suffered the consequence of still recovering from the run he didn’t know he had in him.

As if waiting for a cue, Dan appeared in front of him, arms wrapped around himself and gaze on the floor.

It didn’t even faze Phil that he literally just saw a ghost apparate before him. He was past all that kind of wonderment now.

“I’m sorry” he whispered, and Phil smiled slightly, wanting to hug him. The want came across far too often.

“You apologise way too much” Phil told him, and Dan shook his head, gaze never leaving the floor.

“I completely bailed on you all when I promised I’d help you. I think that warrants an apology.”

Phil bit the inside of his cheek as he considered what to say.

“I’d have ran too. Or disappeared, whatever you class it as. I’d have done the same thing.”

Dan’s head snapped up, shooting Phil a quizzical look.

“I mean, you’re sacrificing yourself to fuck knows what to save the life of a guy you don’t even know. That’s incredibly heroic but terrifying.”

Dan bit his lip and remained silent for a few seconds. Phil did too.

“Joe is important to you,” Dan eventually spoke, “And I want you to be happy, for the both of us. You deserve that.”

Phil was taken aback, but he knew that Dan was being sincere. He had no reason not to be. “You can’t do this for _me,_ Dan. You’re doing it for Joe.”

“I know,” Dan replied, “But if he’s important to you, then he’s important to me. I want to help you any way I can. I know how much he means to you, that much is obvious and I’ve known you less than a week.”

Phil felt himself tearing up, but he tried his hardest to blink them away. If Dan noticed, he didn’t comment on it.

“I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”

Dan smiled sadly. “That makes two of us…”

“You know,” Phil leaned back against the wall, “I wouldn’t even say you’re attached to me, not anymore.”

Dan just stared at him, silently asking for elaboration.

“It’s more like two friends just hanging out, albeit one of the friends is dead and near invisible, but it doesn’t feel like you’re here for any other reason than to just… keep me company.”

“Kind of a terrible setting for being with friends though, right?” Dan gestured to their surroundings, and it made Phil chuckle.

“You’ve got that right. Though my flat isn’t all that better. It’s like a pigsty, but it’s my pigsty. It’s home. I think you’d like it.”

“I never had a home,” Dan responded quickly, gaze temporarily diverted to the floor again, “It never felt like one. It seemed as soon as I’d found my feet in the world and accepted who I was, I was thrown in this hellhole, framed for something I didn’t even do, but nobody ever cared enough to fight in my corner.”

“People are absolute nobheads,” Phil felt himself get slightly angry on Dan’s behalf, but Dan just stared at him blankly.

“I presume that’s an insult” he said.

“Shit, yeah, it is, sorry. Sometimes I forget the language barrier between eras” he blushed in embarrassment.

“I’ve learnt modern slang from you. It’s insane, some of it,” Dan smiled, “And I like when you blush.”

At that, Phil felt his face heat up more, and he pressed his hands on his cheeks in an attempt to mask it.

“Shut up!” he laughed, “I blush all the time!”

“I know,” Dan shrugged, “I’ve noticed” he smiled widely.

Phil couldn’t help but notice how much happier Dan seemed compared to how he was when he left the cell. He felt as if he’d done his job of ‘getting’ Dan, but he wasn’t entirely sure if Dan was fully convinced yet. He wasn’t entirely sure if _he_ was fully convinced yet that he was ready to let Dan go.

“Phil?” Dan asked a little while later, after Phil had cracked some lame jokes to put Dan more at ease.

“Daniel?” Phil replied, copying Dan’s intonation.

“Wh-What will I find on the other side of the light?” his voice was small, he sounded ridiculously vulnerable.

Phil pressed his lips together, wondering how he should tackle such a question. Delicately, of course, but it was something he simply didn’t know the answer to.

“I honestly have no idea,” Phil dropped his gaze to the floor, “Some say that it’s tailored to each individual person, others say that it’s just eternal happiness. But one thing’s for sure, it’ll be better than what you’re suffering through here.”

Dan sighed.

“I’m scared. So scared…”

Phil met Dan’s eyes again, and he could tell the ghost was tearing up (he still wasn’t sure how he could tell, but every feature on Dan’s transparent face was as distinguishable as any human). Phil himself felt a little choked up, too.

“I’m terrified,” he scratched the back of his neck and exhaled nervously, “For Joe, for you.”

“For me?” Dan asked, and Phil nodded.

“Of course for you, you doof. I know as much as you do about what’s going to happen, but what I do know is that you’ll finally be beating Adam. You want that, right?”

Dan’s hands balled into fists.

“Yes. So so much.”

“Then we have to be prepared to let each other go to do this” Phil said it more for his own benefit.

He had gotten so used to Dan’s presence, the light-hearted easy-flowing conversations and the unusual friendship’s origin story, that he hadn’t until now spared a thought to life without him. Which sounded stupid, Dan had only been around for a couple of days, he knew, but Phil had never been a sociable soul, apart from his colleagues he didn’t really have any friends. So Dan had become a part of Phil’s life more than the ghost probably realised.

That was evidently the case.

“ _You_ need to be prepared to let _me_ go?”

“Is it not obvious? I’d be sending you off with nothing more than a middle finger if I wanted rid of you completely. The fact I’m even here talking to you now should tell you something, no?”

Dan bit his lip and nodded slowly.

“Sorry I disappeared,” he said.

“It’s okay, at least I managed to find you.” Phil almost didn’t want to ask the second part. “Do you think you’re ready to do this?”

Dan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I’m ready.”

\--

Marzia had (obviously) sensed their arrival back to the cell, as when Phil turned the corner, she was smiling at him and mouthed a ‘thank you’, he presumed for convincing Dan to come back.

Joe was thrashing about in Zoe and Marzia’s arms, and the priest was reciting prayers at him. Louise was filming the whole thing, looking scared for her life.

“Phil I’m scared” Dan’s voice was a trembling whisper beside him, he was watching the scene unfold too.

Joe (Adam) was screaming profanities at the priest, seemingly repelling the prayers and blessings that the clergyman was trying to bestow. A normal cleansing to banish a sprit shouldn’t be met with that much refusal, Phil silently noted.

Zoe met his gaze for a couple of seconds, and they exchanged worried looks, and she mouthed the word Phil was praying to every religious icon he’d never have to witness first-hand.

\--

Phil took Zoe’s place as she tearfully left to discuss the next extreme step to take with the priest, and Louise went with her for moral support.

“I had a feeling it’d have to come down to this” Marzia stated solemnly as she dodged a headbutt from Joe.

Phil had to wrap his other hand around Joe’s fist to stop him trying to scratch him (Caspar’s arm proved that it could be violent) and he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he could say.

“Will it,” he tried to swallow past the lump in his throat, “Will it all be okay in the end?”

“I’m not a fortune teller” she replied, attempting to lighten the mood.

“Try all you want,” Joe snarled, his voice deeper and the most unlike him it had ever been, “I’ve got this guy’s entire life.”

Adam’s blatant disrespect for Joe’s life made Phil feel sick.

Marzia ignored him and turned her attention back to Phil.

“We have an advantage, I can sense that Dan is now willing to do this, his energy will help us more than he realises.”

Dan had disappeared from view, but was evidently still communicating with Marzia. Phil wagered he was saving as much energy as he could.

Marzia picked up on his silence.

“You’ll have time afterwards, Phil,” she comforted his unspoken worries, “To say goodbye. He won’t go to the light before speaking to you, he’s very adamant about that.”

Phil found it in himself to smile. “Tell him thank you” he requested, and she nodded.

Though there was no doubt Dan could hear him anyway.

Joe was getting increasingly harder to restrain, his words were getting harsher, up to the point Phil wanted to block off his ears from it.

When Zoe, Louise and the priest returned, Zoe was in hysterical tears and Louise had her arm around her friend’s shoulders.

“I have been informed of the situation,” the priest spoke, “And I agree with Miss Sugg’s suggestion to increase the impact of our attempts.”

Zoe sobbed, and Phil took a deep breath.

“You mean you’re going to exorcise this spirit, and potentially harm my friend…” he was spelling it out for himself more than anything else.

“Miss Bisognin and Miss Sugg believe that the spirit possessing Mister Sugg is of a demonic nature, and I concur. Hence we must take appropriate action, Mister Lester.”

Phil gulped.

Joe turned to him, his lips curled in a twisted unnatural smile.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Adam snarled, “They won’t hurt me. Your friend though, I can’t promise the same thing” he then laughed sadistically, and Zoe sobbed again from the doorway. Louise placed her camera on the floor to pull her in for a full hug. She couldn’t film any more anyway, as Adam could draw from the camera’s electrical energy and get stronger, which was the last thing they wanted.

Phil felt himself tear up, he didn’t know what he could do. He wasn’t helping anything by crying, but it was all he felt capable of.

“Mister Lester are you able to keep restraining Mister Sugg or should Miss Pentland take your place?” the priest asked, straight faced.

Louise, at the mention of her name, snapped her head up and looked beyond terrified, Phil couldn’t put her through the task of restraining Joe during the exorcism. He wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even himself.

“I-I can handle it” Phil assured the priest (and himself).

“Very well,” the priest nodded, his grip tightened around the bottle of holy water, the leather-bound book tucked under his other arm. “Let’s begin.”

\--

All Phil knew of exorcisms was from books and movies. He trusted books more than the movies, but the movies were what gave him such vivid ideas of what to expect. Occasionally he had watched videos online (though Zoe and Joe had always advised him against it, most were probably faked and as a famous investigator he needed to keep his wits about him) and they kept him up for multiple nights in a row.

He never thought he’d actually be experiencing one, involved in one.

He had lost track of time, as soon as the priest performed the initial blessing and Joe immediately lunged for him, all of Phil’s focus went into holding him down, maintaining his strength. He wasn’t listening to the priest’s words anymore, only tuning in when he raised his voice and everyone else had to repeat a certain prayer or passage.

Joe’s (Adam’s) words quickly turned into inaudible latin babbles, screaming at the top of his lungs, which scared the living shit out of Phil, and evidently Zoe too.

“He can barely speak fucking English most of the time, how is he doing this?” she cried out helplessly, and Louise quietly shushed her, insisting the priest needed to focus, and pulled her in for another hug.

Marzia had appeared calm and collected throughout the whole ordeal, her gaze fixed firmly on the priest, and following his instructions. Phil felt frantic and helpless, Joe was much better physically built than him, so Phil was terrified that if Adam’s energy got strong enough he would break free from Phil’s grasp.

Though at the same time he highly doubted Adam’s energy could get any stronger.

“Miss Bisognin, if you please” the priest gestured to Marzia after he finished a prayer, and Marzia nodded.

“Dan, now’s the time” she said calmly, and Phil, already crying, shed a couple of tears on Dan’s behalf, he couldn’t begin to imagine how Dan must be feeling.

“I’ll tell him” Marzia continued her one-sided conversation, but Phil didn’t have it in him to be curious.

Joe was thrashing around violently, and Phil could pinpoint the exact second that Dan’s energy came into play, as Joe let out a blood-curdling scream of pain, and threw his head back. The scream didn’t sound like it could be capable of coming from a human.

“ _I’ll,”_ he screamed as the priest began another prayer, “ _never,”_ he let out another scream of pain and tried to scratch Phil, “ _leave!”_

“What do you want?” Zoe demanded as she flicked holy water onto her brother as instructed to do so by the priest.

“ _He_ wants to _live_ ” Adam answered, letting out a laugh and attempting to launch towards Zoe. Phil and Marzia managed to restrain him still.

“It’s working!” Marzia called out a couple of seconds later before anyone had a chance to acknowledge Adam’s satanic message, “Dan’s positive energy is having an effect!”

Phil silently thanked Dan.

But just as things seemed to be getting better, Joe tipped his head forward and began coughing up blood.

Zoe screamed and Louise immediately ran off towards the warden’s office where the group’s first aid box was located.

“It’s working, I promise!” Marzia shouted again to be heard over Joe’s heaves, whilst the priest continued his prayers.

The priest then instructed Zoe to bless the cell with sage, which involved her stepping around her possessed brother.

Joe’s hand broke free from Marzia’s grasp and attempted to swipe at Zoe’s ankle, but she managed to hop away at just the right second to continue with her blessing. Marzia immediately got hold of his hand again and held it down, and Phil made sure his grip on Joe’s arm and hand was iron-tight as Zoe stepped by him.

Phil spared another thought to how long they’d been at the exorcism. He lost track of time almost straight away, and from the research he’d done in the past, a typical exorcism lasted for hours. He spared a thought for Dan, he hoped that the positive spirit was okay, that he’d been able to move on peacefully, or was preparing to.

Zoe and Louise tried every blessing and cleansing technique they could think of whilst the priest continued his prayers and Marzia and Phil continued to hold Joe down. Joe had stopped coughing up blood a couple of minutes after he started, which Marzia assured the group only confirmed that Dan’s energy was helping them as well as the prayers.

Phil believed her, even if Zoe and Louise were more hesitant to do so.

It got to the point where Phil couldn’t remember a time where his brain didn’t feel like it was going to fall right out of his head and his arms didn’t feel like they were going to pop out of their sockets. He wondered again how long they’d been there, and if they had gotten any closer to the end. If there even _was_ an end.

But as the priest finished another prayer and frantically flicked through the pages to find his next one, Joe’s struggles began to lessen, and his thrashing about eased into helpless tugs to free himself that Phil and Marzia easily contained.

“Keep going,” Marzia told the priest, who nodded, “We’re nearly there.”

By the time the priest finished, closing the book and clutching it to his chest, Joe was still and silent, his head dipped.

Phil didn’t want to say out loud, but he could feel a noticeable change in atmosphere, the ambience felt lighter, not heavy and plagued anymore.

“He’s gone” Marzia smiled, looking up to Zoe, who looked positively horrified.

“Wh-what?” she was tearing up again, “What do you mean he’s gone?” her voice broke again.

Louise pulled Zoe into her chest and hugged her loosely, but she sent a confused look to Marzia, who blushed in embarrassment.

“No, no! I mean Adam’s spirit. Your brother is fine.”

Zoe sank to her knees in a fit of tears, Phil assumed they were happy tears, tears of relief.

He wanted to go and comfort his friend, but he didn’t want to let go of Joe’s arm quite yet, even though Marzia had. He wanted to know for certain.

Once Zoe had (slightly) composed herself, she crawled across the stone floor and threw her arms around her brother’s neck, pulling him in for an unbreakable hug.

“He won’t respond, Zoe. He’ll be pretty out of it for a while, maybe a day or two” Marzia informed her quietly, and Zoe simply nodded, not letting go of Joe.

“It’s okay, Phil” Marzia had now diverted her attention, “I promise you Adam’s spirit is no longer here, we banished him. Joe is back to himself.”

And so Phil let go of Joe’s arm, and immediately the fatigue hit him, like a ton of bricks. It felt as if he’d done a monster of a workout, every body part at once, an unbearable ache, both mentally and physically. He felt beyond drained, but it was worth it. Joe was back, they had saved him.

But there was someone who wasn’t back. Who Marzia promised would be.

“I’m just going to speak to Marzia for a second” Phil whispered to Zoe, and she didn’t seem to hear him, but as he went to stand up, she gently grasped his wrist, pulling him back down.

She moved her other arm from around Joe’s neck (Louise caught him as he flopped backwards, and leaned him safely against the wall) and wrapped Phil into a tight hug.

“Thank you” she whispered, still overcome with emotion, “Thank you so fucking much.”

Phil hugged her back, and he felt her tears begin to soak into his shirt, which made him feel less bad about crying into her shirt in return.

“You did great, Zo” he told her, “We saved him.”

She sobbed again, and Phil couldn’t help but do the same.

They held each other as they cried (very _very_ happy tears), but Zoe pulled away first.

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” she laughed, wiping her eyes, “Go and talk to Marzia, sorry I got you sidetracked!”

Phil (shakily) got to his feet, and squeezed his friend’s shoulder before making his way over to where Marzia and the priest were having a quiet discussion. Thankfully, they were laughing and joking with one another, which was a good sign that they weren’t lying about the exorcism being a complete success.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I could speak to you for a second?” Phil politely asked, and Marzia nodded. They made their way around the corner, out of everyone else’s earshot.

“I’m sorry, Phil” she placed a hand on his shoulder. He knew what that meant without her having to elaborate. His heart sank a little. “He had little to no energy left after helping us banish Adam, it was the easiest and most convenient thing for him to go into the light straight away.”

“He-he saw the light?” Phil asked, feeling himself tear up again.

“Before he passed, he told me that at one point during the exorcism he very clearly saw the light, yes” she smiled, and Phil mirrored it. As much as he could, anyway. He would rather Dan have moved on peacefully than have stuck around in pain for a while longer just to say goodbye. He was thankful that Dan’s passing was so easy considering the leading up to it.

“He did leave me a message for you, though.”

“He did?” Phil found himself sounding wistful.

“He said that he will be eternally thankful for your friendship, and that he’s sure he’ll see you soon.”

Phil pressed his lips together. He was willing himself not to cry.

“Does he mean I’m going to die soon?” he cracked a well-needed joke.

Marzia laughed heartily, and Phil joined in. It felt good.

“I suppose that part was quite cryptic, but I suppose he meant it as in he’ll be looking down on you from in the clouds, kind of a guardian angel type of thing” she smiled, and Phil sub-consciously looked up, only to be met with the grim penitentiary ceiling.

“Can you tell him something for me?”

“I can try my hardest for you, but remember that he’s a stronger energy than I am, I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to get through.”

“Please, if you can, just tell him thank you. Tell him he’s a hero.”

Marzia smiled again. “I think he’d like that.”

Phil nodded, and looked up to the ceiling again. “I do too.”

The words were true. Phil hoped that Dan knew that he hadn’t died (again) in vain, he had died saving Joe’s life. Sacrificed his own afterlife so Joe could continue living his life. Phil hoped Dan knew that he would be forever thankful.

\--

“That’s everything,” Louise stated as she closed the boot of the car, “That’s us finished with this place.”

Zoe, Louise and Phil had taken all of their equipment out of the penitentiary and packed it all up to take back to the hotel with them, they were still adamant to leave as quickly as they could. They agreed to just wait in the hotel for however long until Joe was back to normal (since Marzia had informed them that he would be constantly heavily sleeping for the next day or two). Joe, for now, was buckled up in the back seat of the car ready to go, head still dipped and fast asleep.

“Thank fuck for that, I can’t wait to get out of here” Zoe sighed in relief, and ran a hand through her hair. “We’ll call the network tomorrow and explain everything.”

“I informed the viewers earlier, we’ll just put it in the final edit considering we didn’t film anything else” Louise told her, and Zoe shot her a thumbs up.

“Ready to go?” she asked Phil, walking over to lean beside him on the car.

Phil had been looking up at the penitentiary for the past five minutes or so, in disbelief of all that had come out of their investigation there. Now, it was over, they would never be coming back. It was all very bittersweet.

“Yeah, I was just…” Phil trailed off, his eyes still flicking over the building in front of them, “Thinking.”

He sighed.

“He’s in a better place, I promise,” Louise’s voice was soft and gentle, and she took Phil’s hand as she came to stand on his other side, “He’ll be happy now.”

“I still can’t believe he manifested like that, then sacrificed himself for Joe…” Zoe was still trying to wrap her head around the whole thing.

“That’s Dan, for you,” Phil felt confident in saying it, “Selfless.” He smiled.

Zoe took his other hand and squeezed it lightly.

“Well we’re all eternally thankful for what he did, and I’m sure he knows how much you care.”

“You don’t think it’s stupid that I’m reacting like this about it?” he looked either side at his friends, and both girls shook their heads vigorously.

“Not at all,” Zoe squeezed his hand again, “I think you might’ve had the world’s first positive attachment” she smiled, and Phil returned it.

“Besides,” Louise added, “Now we know he was actually real, and we know you’re not insane on that EVP recording from your hotel room, it’s not surprising you formed a friendship quickly, ghost or not. He seemed really nice.”

Phil pulled them both in for a group hug, wondering how he got quite so lucky to have such a phenomenal, albeit very small, group of friends.

“Come on,” Zoe said soothingly when they all broke apart, “Let’s get out of here.”

They all got in the car, Phil beside Joe in the back seat and Louise beside Zoe in the passenger seat.

As Zoe tuned the radio in to an upbeat pop song and the car pulled off heading back to the hotel, Phil kept his gaze on the building, watching with a faint smile on his face as Harrowick Penitentiary disappeared from view, and would be nothing but a distant memory from now on.

\--

Everyone hit a fatigued slump once they got into the hotel lobby.

Phil and Louise each had one of Joe’s arms as they helped him up to his room, Zoe leading the way with Joe’s keycard in hand.

Once he was tucked up safely into bed, Zoe and Louise bid their farewells and went to their own rooms, and Phil reluctantly left for his own.

It felt empty.

Which of course it was, always had been, but he knew this time that there would be no Dan to keep him company if he woke up early and the rest of his friends were fast asleep.

There would be no Dan at all.

Out of habit (and for old times’ sake) he did a sweep of the room with a mel-meter, a wisp of hope in him whilst he did so, but of course the entire room read a baseline of 0.0.

He also switched his camera to night vision, thermal and UV, but nothing out of the ordinary cropped up.

Just as he expected. Not hoped.

His shoes were still lined up neatly just as Dan had tidied them whilst Phil was out of the room before, and it made him smile.

But he still needed to sleep. Badly. Which was ironic, considering the reason he wasn’t allowed to the penitentiary the day before was because his friends deemed him of needing more sleep.

Because they thought he was insane, because of Dan.

Everything had come full circle.

He hoped Dan was happy.

\--

It was two days later that Joe came around from his post-exorcism slumber.

Zoe, Louise, Phil, Alfie and Caspar all took hourly turns checking on him (Alfie had even drawn up a rota), and the group - minus Joe and Louise, whose turn it was to check on him - were all gathered in Caspar’s room playing a game of scrabble (provided by the hotel), when Louise burst through the door excitedly, tugging Joe inside with her.

Zoe gasped at her brother’s arrival, and immediately jumped up from her position on the floor and ran over to her brother, throwing her arms around his neck as she had done in the penitentiary.

Joe smiled and hugged her back, though he was clearly confused as to why she was being so affectionate.

“What’s going on?” he asked everyone, and the group looked to each other, silently nominating each other to speak up.

Marzia had warned them that Joe wouldn’t remember a thing about the possession or the exorcism, the last thing he would remember would be just before his solo investigation in Adam Millington’s cell. The priest warned them to not directly mention the exorcism to him, too.

“We’re playing scrabble, what does it look like?” Caspar replied sassily, opting for the lighthearted route of conversation rather than the serious. Phil would’ve done the same thing.

“Alright, count me in” Joe shrugged, walking over to everyone else and sitting in a free space in the circle, grabbing a spare tile rack and the appropriate amount of letter tiles.

Phil was surprised at the fact Joe hadn’t questioned why they weren’t at the penitentiary anymore, but he didn’t voice his thoughts, just in case.

The game then continued, conversation and banter flowed as easily and fluidly as it used to prior to the Harrowick investigation, everything seemed to be back to normal. Normality was what Phil needed.

At least that’s what he was telling himself.

\--

“You’re aware that we’re paranormal investigators, that this is our job, yes?” Joe protested as Zoe ushered him into the car in the early afternoon.

“Yes” she answered, getting into the driver’s seat.

“And you’re aware that we’re packing up and driving away from an investigation that we still have leads on, yes?”

“Yes” she answered again, starting up the car.

“And you’re aware that we-“

“Shut up Joseph,” Louise scolded from the back seat, hushing him, her mobile to her ear, “I’m on the phone to the network.”

Joe did shut up. And he didn’t directly question why they were leaving early, not even once. Phil was shocked. But he wondered if it was because Harrowick terrified Joe as much as it did everyone else, maybe he was relieved too. The network were understanding, given Joe’s situation, and agreed to just air the episode with whatever footage they had captured up to that point.

“Homeward bound!” Zoe shouted enthusiastically a few miles later, when they were well and truly into their journey home.

“Not a moment too soon!” Louise added, just as enthusiastic, but placed a hand on Phil’s knee in silent apology. She didn’t need to, he was happy that Dan had passed on, he was happy that Dan was happy, wherever he was. He deserved that.

\--

It had gotten to the point where Phil was forgetting what his flat looked like, it felt like he’d been away for months, not days.

It was still a mess (‘organised chaos’) but it was the one comfort to him. Something he could control. He hadn’t felt such a luxury for a while.

Movie and game posters littered every wall, wires and cables were piled on the coffee table, his trusty laptop still on the arm of the sofa, stickers dotted all over the lid. It was so Phil, all his home comforts, it made him happy just being home, even though he was just stood in the doorway.

But at the same time, he felt lonely. He usually did after they finished an investigation and all went to their own homes. His friends were no longer just down the corridor, a knock away. He had considered finding a roommate for that very reason, the post-investigation loneliness, but decided against it, he was the kind of person that very much enjoyed his own space, another person would only spoil that.

It wasn’t as if he would find someone he truly got along with, he very rarely did. With the exception of his colleagues, the only other person he could call a friend wasn’t even a person. Nor were they available anymore.

He fell asleep on the sofa that night, in front of the tv, cold pizza on the floor below him. Normality.

\--

“Wow, your place really is a pigsty.”

The voice caused Phil’s eyes to snap open, though it took his vision a couple of seconds to catch up.

Dan was sitting on (hovering above, though Phil still hated to use the word hover) the coffee table, head on his hand, smiling at him, mere centimetres away.

“What the fuck?” Phil scrambled upright, and shuffled to the end of the sofa, the opposite side to where Dan was sitting on the coffee table.

“What a lovely greeting. How about ‘hello Daniel it’s nice to see you after three days of silence’?”

Phil rubbed his eyes, as sleep was still clinging to him, refusing to fully let go.

But Dan was still there when he opened his eyes again, and he waved.

“Earth to Philip, hello!”

“What the fuck” Phil repeated in disbelief, and Dan rolled his eyes.

“Nice place you’ve got here. Even though I don’t know any of these pictures” he pointed to various posters. Phil followed where he was pointing but didn’t respond.

“Marzia told us that you moved on…”

Dan shook his head. “Actually, she said that I saw the light near the end of the exorcism, which was true. She didn’t lie. I guess you were right about Adam being the reason I couldn’t move on.”

Phil stood up, and Dan followed suit.

“Then go into it!” Phil gestured all around him, not sure where exactly the light for Dan would be. It’s not like he would be able to see it whilst he was alive and breathing. Dan looked really good, though, the strongest he’d ever looked.

Dan raised an eyebrow.

“Is that what you really want?”

Phil sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“I want you to be happy, and you can only be happy if you go into the light. Can you see it right now?”

“Yes.”

“Then go into it” he repeated.

“Phil-“

“Dan, go into the light.”

Silence.

“I’m going to close my eyes and count to five. When I open them, I want you to be gone into it, okay? Don’t stick around just for me. I have my cold pizza and Netflix reruns, I’ll be okay, really.”

Dan folded his arms over his chest.

“Phil-“

Phil squeezed his eyes shut.

“One.”

“Phil you don’t understand-“

“Two. You only have to five, Dan, or I’ll be pissed.”

Silence.

“Three.”

The ghost sighed.

“Fine.”

“Four,” Phil held his breath for a second, “Five.”

Silence.

He kept his eyes shut for an extra couple of seconds just for good measure (a superstition his grandmother had taught him as a child), then slowly opened them, ready to drown his sorrows at losing a friend in reruns of Friends. The irony amused him.

Dan was now face to face with him, closer than ever. Phil should’ve known before, judging by the cold air that had since surrounded him with Dan’s presence.

“I told you to go into the light…” he said, his voice cracking for a reason he didn’t know. Or want to know.

Dan smiled.

“I did go into the light.”

“I don’t understand” Phil whispered, his throat suddenly feeling very dry.

Dan took a step back, still smiling widely.

“Remember how you told me that what’s after the light is tailored to each individual person?”

Phil just nodded.

“I went into the light after the exorcism. I was completely depleted of energy, basically an empty shell, so I told Marzia that message for you and just left, I didn’t want you to see me in that state. I was, excuse the irony, as good as dead.”

“So why are you here?”

“Are you being deliberately dense?” Dan laughed, cocking his head to the side. “I went through the light and ended up here.”

“I-I don’t understand…” It wasn’t a lie. Phil didn’t know what he was thinking. He couldn’t be entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming.

He subtly pinched the back of his arm, and winced at the pain.

So it was actually happening. At least that was one confusing problem solved.

“Phil, you’re _glowing.”_

He looked down at himself, and he didn’t look any different. He didn’t feel any different in himself, either, just a million times more confused.

“No I’m not…” he gestured to himself to make it obvious to Dan, who only rolled his eyes again.

“Seriously, are you pulling my leg right now? Are you being dense on purpose?” he asked, and Phil shook his head. He genuinely wasn’t.

“How can you not get it,” Dan laughed, “ _You’re_ my light.”

Phil had to sit back down to try and process all the information. He didn’t even know that humans could be on the other side of a spirit’s light, never mind physically _be_ the light. He’d read novels about it happening, but there had never been any reported real life cases.

Then again, he thought, Dan had been a first for many things in the paranormal field. A marvel.

Dan took Phil’s contemplative silence as a plea to elaborate. Phil didn’t argue.

“Listen. When I was alive, I spent every day wishing for a friend. It sounds pathetic, I know, but it’s true. I told you before, back in the penitentiary when you came in for the first time I got such positive vibes from you, I just had a feeling that if we were alive at the same time, we’d get along so well, the companionship I’d spent every day dreaming about. I guess the universe finally took notice of me, for once.”

Phil felt tears pool behind his eyes, he’d cried way too much over the past week.

“So,” Phil swallowed thickly, “So you’re going to be here forever?”

Dan shrugged. “If you’ll have me. Kind of like a roommate, I guess? But a roommate that doesn’t eat or sleep, so I’m really cheap to maintain!”

The universe seemed to have taken notice of Phil for once, too. He silently thanked every higher power that may exist, promising to be eternally grateful.

“I’m going to have to teach you so much about living in the twenty-first century” Phil laughed, and Dan grinned, and made his way to sit beside Phil (he still refused to use the word hover).

“Is that a yes?” Dan asked, clasping his transparent hands together.

“Of course it’s a yes, old man. I’d love to have you around all the time, as long as you promise to clean up after me like you did in my hotel room” he smirked.

Dan sighed dramatically. “Fine. But only because you saved me from an actual hell of an afterlife. Living with a literal demon. Least I can do, I guess. But then we’re even.”

“What about your manifestation? Can you still only do four hours a day?” Phil asked, the question had been knocking around his mind for a while.

“Phil, keep in mind this is my personal heaven, according to the universe. I can have whatever I want here, hence I have infinite manifestation ability. I no longer have to haunt your lamps and other appliances!” he fist-pumped the air, and Phil threw his head back in laughter.

“You still have no idea how to be a ghost, do you?” he asked leaning his head against the back of the sofa and turning to face his new roommate.

Dan placed his hand over his non-beating heart dramatically and gasped.

“Philip Lester how dare you accuse me of such a thing,” he tried sounding offended, but couldn’t prevent erupting into a smile when Phil raised an eyebrow, “Okay fine, I have no fucking idea. But I have as much of an idea of how to be a ghost as you do of how to be a functional human being!”

“I don’t know what you mean” Phil bit back a laugh as he blushed in embarrassment, he knew it was true. Louise and Caspar always made fun of him for his inability to be a ‘normal person’.

“Oh _please,”_ Dan waved him off dismissively, “I’ve seen what’s in your kitchen cupboards, I’ve seen the weeks old boxes in your bin, I’m surprised you can even walk a step in this place without cracking a disc of a video game…” he listed off the reasons on his fingers, and Phil shushed him.

“Okay I get it, we’re both terrible at our respective lifeforms. We can bond over it whilst I educate you on one of the biggest blessings to humanity you’ve missed out on for your whole afterlife.”

He slipped off of the sofa and crawled over to the tv, switching on one of his many game consoles and picking up a controller. For a second, he reached for one to give to Dan, then realised how pointless and awkward that would be, and how much Dan would laugh and probably make fun of him for it. They had gotten to that point in friendship where they could outwardly poke fun at each other, a stage which took over a year with the rest of Phil’s friends (all five of them).

Dan was watching him curiously as he sat back on the sofa, his gaze on the device in Phil’s hands.

“What are you showing me?” he asked, his gaze flicking between the tv screen and the controller. He marvelled at how they interacted with one another, being such a distance apart.

Phil turned to grin at him as animated characters jumped onto the screen.

“This, Daniel Howell, is Mario Kart. This game will ruin your life.”

“My life is already over, Phil. Literally. I win!” Dan exclaimed, raising his arms in victory, but Phil only shook his head.

“It’s just as well,” he bit back a laugh, “You’d be terrible anyway.”

“Take that back right now” Dan tried to keep his voice as serious as possible, but couldn’t help matching Phil’s laughter straight after he spoke.

“Never. This is your forever now, buddy. Best get used to it.”

Dan was already more than comfortable in his new and improved afterlife. He would dare to go as far as using the word perfection. A world without Adam was phenomenal, but an eternity with the only friend he’s ever had and will ever need, he was sure that classed as perfection.

“Look, look!” Phil brought him out of his thoughts and directed his attention back to the tv screen, where he had apparently charted first in a race in the video game. Phil turned to face him, a pout on his lips. “Dan, were you even watching me?”

Dan smiled.

“Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I genuinely can't believe this fic is over, I spent so many months slaving over it and now it's all done and dusted, that's crazy to think, but hopefully you enjoyed it!! I know in the last part literally all of my comments were you all saying that you weren't ready for this part, but hopefully the ending was a nice surprise for you and you weren't too upset with what happened!
> 
> Also, you might have noticed that I haven't put this fic as completed yet, because I have a question to pose to you: would you like an epilogue?? Because if you do I have an idea in mind for it already, but if you feel like the fic has been tied up nicely in this chapter then i'll end it as it is and mark it as completed 
> 
> But most of all I hope you enjoyed this fic! The response has been absolutely overwhelming, i'm still trying to get my head around how many of you have told me you loved it! I was so so nervous to post the first chapter of this fic because it's a genre I don't see much in the phandom at all, and the fact it's not all been 110% fluff made me worry a little bit that it wouldn't interest any of you, but i'm so glad I took the chance on it, and i'm so glad you guys did too, many of you told me that this isn't usually the type of fic you'd go for, but you really liked this one, and that makes me happier than you could ever know!
> 
> I could literally go on and on in this authors note but i'll leave you be to go and enjoy halloween festivities and whatnot, but please please let me know what you thought in the comments below, and let me know if you want an epilogue or not! (also please let me know what you thought on both twitter and tumblr too, my usernames are in the author's note below this one) 
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING :)


	11. Epilogue.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens. You've been begging for it since pretty much the first chapter, and it happens.
> 
> This epilogue is set a couple of months after chapter ten, when Dan becomes Phil's roommate, and still carries on with the same storyline/characters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this has been such a long time coming! i've had the idea for the epilogue since chapter two pretty much, but i've just not had time to write it due to uni and general life commitments, but i finally wrote it and made it festive because tis the season and all that. Shoutout to julia aka phanimist for being this fic's biggest supporter and pushing me to get this written and published to the world, you're a good egg.
> 
> Check the author's note at the bottom for more potentially exciting stuff!

“So how was it?” Dan asked eagerly as Phil walked through the door and flopped onto the sofa, clearly exhausted.

They had soon found out that Dan couldn’t leave the flat, but they had made it work. Phil had also educated him on how to ‘live’ in the twenty-first century, and Dan picked it up as if he were a natural. The two had also only gotten closer friends.

“I’m never listening to you again, ghost boy” Phil replied, “I’m going to end up on the worst dressed list for sure. Joe and Caspar practically laughed me off of the red carpet.”

Dan placed a hand on his hip. “I think you look good!”

“Nobody else did, an interviewer asked if my mum still dresses me.”

Dan burst into laughter, and Phil narrowed his eyes.

“I really wish you were human right now so I could punch you.”

In the blink of an eye, Dan was sat (Phil still refused to use ‘hovered’) beside him, cross-legged with his head on his hand.

“You wouldn’t do that to me, you love me too much” Dan stuck out his tongue, and Phil reached out his hand, straight through Dan’s non-living body. His hand immediately felt ice cold.

“If you weren’t my best friend and my roommate I’d call Marzia to banish you. You realise that, right?”

Phil was clearly joking, and Dan snorted.

“I think you’re glossing over one very big and very obvious flaw. I went through the light, I’m quite literally untouchable.” Dan wiggled his eyebrows to accentuate his point, and Phil flipped him off.

“Did you guys at least win, though?”

Phil had always hated awards shows. Ever since _Spirit Seekers_ got its first award nomination back in its second season, it had been one of the biggest banes of Phil’s existence. Hundreds of thousands of people openly criticising his career and him as a person was never something he looked forward to. Though they had won all manner of awards over the years, most of them were proudly displayed back in the network’s office. Phil and his friends were allowed to keep a few of the smaller ones, however.

Phil grinned. “It hurts that you doubt us, Daniel.”

Dan cheered and applauded, it was still weird to Phil that no sound came from the action. Air clapping against air, essentially.

“Did I help?”

“Of course, they made sure to show our first encounter in the nomination clip. I bet the audiences at home enjoyed that, especially ones that don’t watch our show…”

“Fond memories” Dan smiled. “Apart from the literal demon. But you know, let’s not dwell on the negatives. Let’s focus on how well I cleaned the flat whilst you were gone.”

Phil looked around the room. He was impressed, but his teasing mind wasn’t going to let Dan know that.

He pressed his lips together in an attempt to look more serious, and shrugged. “Looks the same to me.”

Dan’s mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me? It took nearly an hour to sort out your mess of a wardrobe and sort through all your odd socks, and don’t even get me started on the dishes you left draining in the kitchen. If I didn’t have unlimited energy, I’d have collapsed within the first ten minutes of living here.”

Phil bit back his laughter, Dan was the easiest… person to wind up. He fell for the bait every single time.

“Guess you’ll have to try harder next time, you do owe me considering I freed you from the penitentiary all that time ago….”

Dan pouted. “I really want to punch that smirk off your face.”

“But you can’t,” Phil sang, “Because you’re not human” he teased.

“About that…” Dan’s voice was suddenly dropped, and he dipped his head.

Phil had his eyes closed, sleep close to overtaking him, so he didn’t notice.

“Let’s talk tomorrow, yeah?” he yawned, “I’ve been interviewed so much tonight I don’t think I can form a proper sentence anymore.”

“Y-Yeah… of course” Dan replied, voice small.

Phil smiled and trudged into his bedroom, with a sleepy-sounding ‘goodnight’ and an accompanying yawn. Dan watched him go, and tried to get control over his racing thoughts.

\--

“It’s December seventh and you don’t have a tree yet” Joe clarified, and Phil nodded.

It was a few days later, and Phil was catching up with the Sugg siblings. Joe was still oblivious to the exorcism, according to Zoe and Caspar he still hadn’t questioned anything about what happened after his solo investigation in Adam Millington’s cell.

Zoe gasped.

“That genuinely offends me, Phil.” She took a sip of her hot chocolate. “Even this tiny coffeeshop has one!” she pointed to the corner of the shop they were in, meeting before heading back to his flat.

“I’ve been busy, Zo! You know, with the show, all the talk shows we’ve done since Dan’s episode aired, Dan himself back at the flat…”

“I can’t believe how we’ve blown up since then. We were big before, but we’re like, unstoppable now” Joe smiled triumphantly, and clinked his mug to Phil’s and Zoe’s.

“Ignoring the materialistic side of things,” Zoe sent her brother a warning glance, “How is our ghostie friend?”

Phil took a long sip of his coffee. “He’s doing fine.”

Zoe stared him down.

“Okay, okay. These past few days he’s been different. I don’t know why, if it’s something I said or did or…”

“Are you still having your little domestics?” Joe questioned, and Phil cradled his mug in his hands.

“Not for a few days now. It’s quite worrying.”

Joe sent a look to his sister, who nodded.

“We’ll come and talk to him. He’s been living, I say living but you know what I mean, with you for what, nearly three months? And he’s never been like this before?”

Phil nodded.

“Then why are we wasting time here?” Joe asked rhetorically, “We have a ghost to sort out. Not in the sense of banishing or finding but, like-“

He shook his head as he trailed off, and when he looked back up, Zoe and Phil were already out of the door, and he had to run to catch up with them.

\--

“Dan! Company!” Phil called as he and the siblings entered the flat, and immediately Dan apparated in front of them, smiling widely.

“It’s so nice to see you again!” he greeted Zoe and Joe, who smiled at him in return.

“How’s modern life treating you, Dan? Wish you had a different heaven yet?” Joe asked jokingly.

Dan shook his head. “Not at all. It keeps me grounded, excuse the pun. This one keeps me on my toes all damn day” he nodded towards Phil, who blushed.

“It looks clean here to me!” Zoe complimented.

“That’s because I’m here, if he still lived alone he’d have drowned in a sea of rubbish by now” Dan rolled his eyes playfully, and Zoe laughed.

“Okay let’s stop this Phil-bashing, I’m standing right here!” he felt as if his cheeks were going to burn off.

“Has he always been this touchy when he’s being called out?” Dan asked.

“Always.” Joe laughed, and came over to place a hand on Phil’s shoulder.

“ _Anyway,”_ Phil was desperately trying to change the subject before he died of embarrassment, “Zoe, didn’t you have something you wanted to talk to Dan about?”

It seemed as if Zoe had forgotten, as her eyes widened momentarily and she mouthed a ‘sorry’ before turning back to Dan.

“Dan. Come walk with me. I mean float. I mean hover. I mean-“

“I know what you mean, Zoe” Dan chuckled, “Let’s go.”

Phil watched them leave as they strolled into another room, and Joe nudged him in the arm.

“Trouble in paradise will resolve itself. You know Zoe has a silver tongue, she’ll find out what’s wrong with him in like a minute.”

“I just hope he’s okay” Phil sighed.

“I’ll obliterate you on Mario Kart for a while to take your mind off it, come on” Joe ruffled his hair and walked over to the tv, switching on the console and gathering the controllers.

Phil breathed out in an attempt to relieve himself of stress, and allowed himself to smile.

“I’ll only play if you promise you’ve gotten better at corners since last time we played. It’s always a clear win for me.”

Joe narrowed his eyes at him.

“Just sit down and prepare to be schooled.”

\--

It was nearly two hours until they came back into the living room.

Zoe’s hair had been thrown up into a messy top-knot, and she was clutching various pieces of paper to her chest. Dan was smiling, and they were mumbling to each other.

“Christmas is a time for sharing, so spill!” Joe shouted to break up their conversation.

“I’ll tell you on the way home. Alfie wants some help with editing the new episode before the deadline and I said we’d both help since you’re sleeping over” Zoe replied with a sweet smile, and Joe groaned.

“I didn’t sign up to be an editor, I signed up to be a paranormal expert” he muttered, causing Phil to smile.

“Well even us ghost hunters have to pitch in with the manual labour from time to time” Zoe was purposefully condescending as she walked over to flick her brother in the back of his head, prompting him to stand up.

“Will you tell me what you have there?” Phil asked, referring to the papers Zoe was clutching.

“No” Dan answered quickly, apparating beside Zoe. Phil eyed him curiously.

“You’ll find out soon enough” Zoe smiled.

“How soon is soon?” he asked with a pout.

“Impatient as ever” Dan joked, already staring back at him. A small smile played on his lips.

“Another time I wish you were human so I could punch you in the face.”

Dan and Zoe shared a look, as did Phil and Joe. Those in the know versus those that didn’t.

“Well, we’ll be off then. We’ll be back sometime soon, this was really nice!” Zoe bid her hasty goodbyes and left, dragging Joe with her, leaving just enough time for him to say goodbye too.

Once the door closed behind them, Phil turned to Dan.

“Please tell me what happened.”

Dan mimed a lock and key motion over his lips.

“Now there’s a surprise” he mumbled before turning on his heels and walking into his bedroom without another word.

He collapsed onto his bed and cuddled a pillow into his chest.

“Tell me what’s wrong” Dan spoke quietly as he crouched beside the bed, staring into Phil’s eyes.

Phil had forgotten that Dan had no need for doors, they were no barrier for him.

“What’s the point” Phil spoke into his pillow, his eyes closed.

“You’re beginning to sound like me when I was in the penitentiary. That’s not a good sign.”

“You may as well still be, you’re getting to be so distant lately” Phil wasn’t even sure he could be heard, he had buried his face so far into his pillow. He didn’t even know if Zoe had managed to get to the bottom of what was wrong with Dan, she had been so vague.

“Do you-“ Dan trailed off. “Do you really think that?”

Phil merely nodded.

Silence followed.

It was around ten minutes later that Phil decided to end his moping party, and looked up, only to see Dan was nowhere to be found. As he padded around the flat, he was nowhere to be seen. He had presumably disappeared for the night.

Feeling generally defeated by life, Phil didn’t have the energy to fight.

“Goodnight, Dan” he whispered into the nothingness of the now pitch black living room as he switched off all the lights, then walked into his bedroom and closed the door softly behind him for the final time that night.

\--

A few days later, of very minimum contact between he and Dan, Phil was in a meeting with Louise, they had volunteered to go on behalf of the entire group to suffer through an end of year meeting with the network.

“What theme have you gone for with your tree this year?” Louise whispered in between the clicking of the powerpoint transitions.

“I don’t have one” Phil replied, and pressed his lips together.

“You’ve not got a theme? That’s cool, haphazard matches your personality more” she smiled.

“No, I don’t have a tree.”

Louise gasped. “That’s two years in a row, now. You used to love Christmas, what’s happened to you?”

Phil shrugged. “It gets less appealing the older I get.”

“That’s bullshit, you’re just making excuses.”

Phil shrugged again. He’d been feeling down for days now, he didn’t entirely know why.

“Why not put some effort in, for Dan’s sake if nothing else? The poor guy deserves some fun after the hellish afterlife he’s suffered for fuck knows how many years.”

“He’s in his personal heaven, he’s fine” Phil heard his voice harshen, and Louise looked momentarily taken aback.

“Zoe told me there’d been trouble in paradise.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “I’m so glad my ghost roommate and my domestics are such front page news for you all.”

Louise looked down at her phone, opened a text thread that Phil didn’t want to intrude upon, and smiled down at it. She pinched his cheek.

“It’ll all work itself out soon” she assured him.

“I hate that word with a passion” he mumbled to himself, and Louise squeezed his shoulder.

\--

The traffic on the way back to the flat was horrific. City traffic was known for being tedious, but when all Phil wanted to do was be home and be in his loving, welcoming bed, everyone in the country decided to take a trip to the city and slow his taxi down.

The driver barely had time to say ‘we’re here sir’ before Phil was throwing the money at him (with a generous tip, it was the Christmas season after all) and running into the lobby.

Naturally, the lift broke down as it was on its way up to his floor. Thankfully, the flat complex had security on standby who knew the lift was having issues so always had someone in the building to fix it.

But still, a delay to his arrival in bed was a delay nonetheless.

As the lift opened onto his floor, he let out a deep breath.

The end of the day was in sight. He just had to get past a moody, stroppy ghost first.

As he was just a few tiny steps from the front door, Zoe ran out, colliding directly into him, sending them both stumbling backwards.

She was red-faced, clearly having rushed around doing something or other, her key to Dan and Phil’s flat hanging from her little finger.

“I gave you that key for emergencies, Zo” Phil said calmly, fighting back a smile in an attempt to remain stone-faced.

“It _is_ an emergency!” she insisted. “A matter of the utmost importance!”

“You have a pine needle in your hair” Phil stated in amusement and took it out of his friend’s hair.

Zoe pressed her lips together, unsure of what to say, and she eventually threw her hands up in the air.

“Okay fine, you caught us. The five of us wanted to surprise you!”

“That’s why Louise tried to get me to go for dinner after our meeting…” it all made perfect sense.

Zoe nodded. “I’m ruining everything, but yeah. Alfie and Caspar went and got the tree, Joe and I went to pick out the decorations and then Alfie and I stayed in your flat to put up the tree and decorate it and it means a lot to them so please still try to act shocked and send smiling selfies and tell them you love it but Alfie might be outside waiting for me in the car so I should really go…”  she took a deep breath, having spoken everything in seemingly one breath.

“Did my roommate not say anything about your plan?” he enquired, and Zoe raised an eyebrow.

“Technically, could he have stopped us?”

“Low-blow, Zoe” he lowered his voice, and they both shared a laugh at his obvious joke.

“But no in all seriousness he seemed in awe of it all, he was sure to point out if we missed a spot on the tree. I think you’ll be surprised about what you find” she smiled. He noticed that her smile was wider than it had been. He wondered why.

Her phone then buzzed and she revealed it was Alfie waiting outside the lobby, so quickly hugged Phil goodbye and dashed towards the lift.

“Phil!” she called just as his hand hovered above the doorknob. Her head was poking around the corner, she was beaming at him.

“Zoe?” he replied, and she only smiled wider.

“You have a good night, okay?”

She didn’t leave time for him to respond, and dashed back down towards the lift.

He smiled to himself at his friend’s everlasting positivity (minus at her brother’s exorcism, but that was an exceptional circumstance), and opened the door to the flat, Zoe had left it unlocked.

“I’m home!” he called in almost a sing-song intonation, and wandered into the kitchen. His rejection of Louise’s offer of lunch was definitely a mistake. To say how desperate he was to be home and end the day just a few minutes prior, he felt surprisingly better already. The atmosphere felt lighter, not muggy and downtrodden like it had been the past few days due to his and Dan’s disputes and distancing.

Though Phil put his increased mood largely down to the towering Christmas tree which stood proudly at the end of the living room, beautifully decorated (definitely according to Zoe’s strict colour scheme) and prominent. He already felt festive, and regretted his decision to not celebrate the year before, he really had missed out.

“Where are you, ghost man? Zoe told me you helped with all this” he called out again, and stood still as he listened closely for a reply.

He waited for at least ten seconds.

In the meantime, he sent a text to each of his friends thanking them profusely for their collective efforts, and even sent a selfie of his leaking eyes, the fact that the group had gone to such extents just to see him happy would bring a tear to anyone’s eye. Especially Phil, who was an overly-emotional person by nature.

“I’m-I’m in here” came Dan’s long-awaited response, straight from Phil’s room.

Immediately, Phil was intrigued.

Dan had no purpose for being in his room, surely he would be in the living room, admiring the tree.

“You don’t have to clean my wardrobe out again, I promise I’ve been keeping it nice and tidy” Phil was blabbering as he made his way over to his room, his attention mainly focused on replying to his friends’ enthusiastic texts, they all seemed over the moon that their plan worked and that they managed to keep it a secret all the time they needed to.

The door swung open as he was trying to find the ideal emoji to reply to Louise with, completely lost in his phone.

“Surprise.” Dan’s voice was small, almost unsure, and it took a second or two for Phil to look up.

When he did, his phone went tumbling to the ground.

Because there stood Dan, as human and real as Phil himself, lips in a fine line, arms by his sides. His skin was practically glowing, surprisingly his skin tone was nearly as pale as Phil’s, and Phil’s university hoodie hung from his thin frame. His hair, the most beautiful shade of dusky brown, was swept effortlessly to the side. His eyes, no longer a mere darker grey than the rest of him, twinkled under the overhead lights.

“Wh-“ Phil couldn’t get a word out. His throat felt as if it had closed up on him.

“Zoe and I had an idea. We thought that if we used enough energy from electrical appliances,” he gestured to the array of high-energy appliances at his feet, all switched onto their highest capacity, “It might be enough for me to fully manifest… I guess it worked” he chuckled weakly. It explained the papers that Zoe was clutching to her chest a few days before. They were plans.

“This can’t be happening” Phil’s voice broke, and he cupped his hands over his mouth as tears continued to fall.

“I’m sorry if I’m a let-down, or something… I just thought it might make you happy…”

He didn’t need to say another word. Phil ran across the room, uncaring if he caught any of the appliances as he ran (he didn’t) and threw his arms around Dan’s neck and began sobbing into his shoulder, hugging him so tightly as if he were to let go, Dan would disappear again.

“This isn’t logically possible in any way” Phil mumbled into Dan’s shoulder, “But I’m so fucking happy it’s happened.”

Dan hugged him back with every inch of strength he had. He’d never felt such genuine belonging in his shortlived life before. He’d always felt like an outcast in the forties, was made to feel like one, but he felt like maybe, just maybe, Phil needed him just as much as he needed Phil.

“I’m hugging my best friend” Phil whimpered through his tears, and Dan hugged him even tighter, and felt tears pouring from his own eyes. Last time he felt himself cry, it was minutes before he died, he wanted death to come sooner. But now, in this moment, happy tears, he never wanted it to end. Maybe it never had to.

“This is why I’ve been kind of quiet recently, it’s something I’ve wanted to try for a while but we never spoke about it so Zoe and I have been planning this for quite a few days and I wanted to surprise you….”

“Consider me genuinely surprised” Phil laughed weakly, still overcome with emotion.

They eventually broke apart, both blubbering messes, but Phil took the recovery time as prime chance to really study Dan’s face, now it was enriched with colour and texture, not transparent and occasionally murky grey shades.

“I knew you were gorgeous but…” Phil couldn’t help himself, and stretched out his hand to stroke Dan’s cheek, a shiver flowing down his spine at their first skin-to-skin contact. Dan visibly dithered too.

Dan’s eyes widened, and Phil immediately snatched his hand away, and felt the colour rush to his cheeks.

“I’m sorry, that was really inappropriate of me. I meant that, um-“

“It’s okay” Dan reached out to take Phil’s hand, and loosely linked their fingers. To be doing such a thing with another man gave him an undeniable thrill, he knew he was now in a day and age where he was allowed to be himself. It was liberating. “I’ve pretty much been wanting to tell you the same thing for months.”

Phil couldn’t stop the smile that formed on his lips upon hearing Dan’s words. The words that came from plump, slightly chapped lips that a big part of him wanted to explore every crevice of.

“Can you move or do you have to stay with all the electricals?” he asked, voice croaky.

“I think I can move, as long as it all stays switched on…”

“Great! Come with me” Phil then tugged on Dan’s hand to follow him back into the living room, where the Christmas tree was still glistening with fairy lights and perfectly placed baubles.

“Not that I mind but what exactly are we doing?” Dan asked, cheeks flushed and grin on his lips.

“Something I’ve always wanted to do with someone, but never had the chance!” Phil was practically giddy, and it made Dan feel warm inside knowing he was the one to make him feel like that.

Phil then let go of his hand and Dan immediately felt the cold winter air bite at his hand, he could _feel_ it, not just imagine it. Or remember from his previous life.

Phil spent five minutes with his head in the same cupboard, pushing past boxes and boxes of miscellaneous stuff he should really get rid of, until he came across what he was looking for, it was collecting its eightieth layer of dust at the back of the cupboard.

He ran back over and held the object out to Dan.

Dan looked up at him in amusement.

“How do you expect us to do that?” he asked sweetly, and Phil threw the tree-topper onto his lap.

“It’s obvious. You get on my shoulders and it’ll hoist you up.”

Dan didn’t argue. He was still slightly wobbly on his legs due to not walking since the literal forties, but Phil was never impatient. He helped Dan onto his shoulders and made sure he was secure, before standing on a footstool to get them as much height as possible.

Phil had high ceilings, a feature he’d never really known the purpose of when he bought the flat, but it all made sense now.

“Stay steady or else I’ll knock the bloody thing over!” Dan warned with a laugh as Phil nearly lost his footing, but they were soon secure again.

Dan reached and fixed the tree-topper onto the top branch, and they both let out a cheer of joy once it had been completed.

Phil then carefully stepped off of the footstool and helped Dan down, his hands finding themselves on Dan’s waist as he did so.

But Dan didn’t make any effort to move once he was back on the ground.

Instead, he took a step closer, their faces mere centimetres apart.

Phil gulped, his fingertips twitched with anticipation. Dan’s eyes trailed from Phil’s eyes down to his lips and back again. Phil found it in himself to nod a tiny bit, and it was an agonisingly long second before Dan closed the gap between them, and his lips found Phil’s.

It was euphoric.

The kiss was soft and slow, gentle enough that either of them could pull away if they wanted to, but neither had any intent to do so.

When they reluctantly broke apart, foreheads resting on each other, both wearing matching wide smiles, Phil closed his eyes for a moment, trying to take in everything that was happening.

“This is absolutely fucking bizarre, and makes no sense,” Phil whispered, it was all he could manage, “But this is one of the happiest moments of my life.”

“ _We_ make no sense,” Dan replied, “But this is definitely the happiest moment of my life and my afterlife combined” he pressed his lips gently to Phil’s once again.

Though this time, when he went to pull away, Phil pulled him in closer and deepened the kiss, smiling into it. Dan followed suit, he couldn’t help it.

\--

“I can’t believe I’ve kissed a ghost” Phil shook his head in disbelief as he laid his head in Dan’s lap a few hours later, Dan absentmindedly playing with his hair as he smiled down at him.

“Do you want to kiss him again?” Dan raised an eyebrow, and Phil rolled his eyes.

“Smooth.”

Dan grinned and leaned down to kiss him, and Phil happily reciprocated.

“Thank you for coming back, after the penitentiary I mean.”

“As much as I wanted to, technically I didn’t,” Dan shrugged, “The universe brought me back here, remember?”

“Someone must have been looking out for us” Phil mused, and Dan hummed in agreement, his nose still brushing Phil’s cheek.

“I can’t believe you’re real…” Phil trailed off as he got up off of Dan’s lap and instead sat opposite him on the sofa, cross-legged, though their knees were touching.

He reached over and rubbed his thumb over Dan’s cheekbone.

“Beautiful…” it was more a case of him accidentally voicing his thoughts, but Dan didn’t laugh. Instead he gently took Phil’s hand and linked their fingers, and lifted their hands up to gently press a kiss to Phil’s knuckles.

“We should try to get some sleep, it’s late” Dan let go of Phil’s hand and outstretched his arms, and Phil crawled along to slot in front of him. There wasn’t much room to spare on the sofa, but they both fit comfortably. So comfortably in fact that Dan was out like a light, the last thing he did was press a light kiss to the back of Phil’s neck and wrap an arm around his waist. Phil was awake for a while longer, lost in his own thoughts. How none of the night he’d just experienced should have been able to happen, but somehow it did, he wondered how he’d gotten to be so lucky. He eventually drifted off to sleep with a genuine smile on his face.

When Zoe, Joe, Alfie, Louise and Caspar let themselves into the flat the following morning, bundles of presents in their arms, wanting to check up on the two since they hadn’t heard from them (Phil’s phone still laid cracked on the bedroom floor, he hadn’t even looked at it since he dropped it), Zoe stretched out her arms in the doorway to stop anyone from entering.

She placed a finger over her lips, gesturing for everyone to be silent, and tip-toed her way across the room until she could see the pair, cuddled into each other. She gestured for the others to join her, and Louise had to press her hand into her mouth to stop from letting out an inhumane sound of joy. What escaped her was a high-pitched squeak.

It caused Dan to stir in his sleep slightly, and he instinctively tightened his arm that was around Phil’s waist, before drifting back into the clutches of sleep.

Zoe covered her hands over her mouth at the sight, and Alfie put an arm around her shoulders.

They all looked to each other and nodded, silently agreeing that they would come back later. They cast a final glance over the pair, and each person smiled at the sight, so pure and so genuinely affectionate.

“It just makes no sense how happy he is now compared to a few months ago, like before Harrowick” Caspar said as the group made their way into the lift.

Joe thumped him on the head. “It’s obvious why, dumbass.”

“I think they’ll be together forever” Zoe, ever the hopeless romantic, stated dreamily as she cuddled into Alfie.

Forever was a word that Dan had never seen the purpose of. Promising something to the ends of the earth or the very boundaries of time itself, he’d just never seen the appeal. Nothing was worth pledging forever to. Nothing was ever worth it.

Or so he thought until he woke up with Phil still fast asleep in his arms, chest rising and falling calmly, everything was okay. There were no threats, nothing bad creeping around the corner, just himself and Phil, alone in their flat, _their_ flat. Dan could be just as much a contributor as long as he had enough energy from the appliances. He could stay the way he was for as long as he wanted.

He contemplated it as he looked down at Phil’s sleeping face, lips slightly parted and chapped from all of their kisses the night before, and it caused a fluttering in Dan’s chest. He wanted to stay like it forever.

He watched as Phil stirred from his slumber around a half hour later, and felt another flutter as Phil smiled as soon as he noticed Dan was still cuddled around him.

“I had a dream you weren’t there when I woke up” he said, voice raspy and still laced with sleep.

Dan brushed some strands of hair out of Phil’s eyes.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. We’ve found a way.”

Phil smiled, but it fell a second later. Dan felt a pang in his chest.

“How can I be sure though? We don’t know how this works, what if one day you’re just… not here?”

“Even if I’m not here physically I’ll always be here spiritually. Quite literally.”

“But I want you like this” Phil prodded a finger into Dan’s chest, the action soft and gentle due to him still being half-asleep.

“I do too. But if the worst does happen, we’ll take as much time as it takes to find a new way. The universe seems to have taking a liking to us after all, I’m sure we’d work something out.”

“I’m sure I’m just over-reacting” Phil dipped his head for a moment or two, then made eye contact again. “Can we please just stay like this for a while longer?” he stuck out his bottom lip, and it took all of Dan’s willpower not to reach forward and kiss it.

He took a deep, silent breath. “Is forever okay?”

Phil broke into a grin and connected their lips.

“Forever is perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are, the end of Watchful. I know this has been a long time coming and a lot of you had high hopes, hopefully I didn't let you down too much??? I've had the 'surprise' scene in my head since the beginning of the fic and it was so fulfilling to be able to write it i can't tell you
> 
> BUT, truth be told i'm not ready to let these characters go. So i'm thinking of maybe writing the occasional oneshot using these characters?? maybe a mini series?? i just wanted to know what your opinions were about it, if you think i should give it a go or if i should just leave it where it is and leave this fic behind, let me know :)
> 
> ALSO PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT!! leave a comment below, tweet me @bloggerhowell or drop me an ask on tumblr (cafephan) as your feedback means the world to me as it always has, and always will 
> 
> thank you for supporting this fic from day one, it truly does mean so much to me and i can't thank you all enough for reading, no matter when you found it :)
> 
> \- kirsten x

**Author's Note:**

> HI WELCOME TO MY 2016 HALLOWEEN FIC
> 
> There will be a new update every day leading up to October 31st, and I hope you enjoy! :)
> 
> Twitter; bloggerhowell  
> Tumblr; cafephan


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